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(^OY^O^V
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HOW
CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
I By Rev. A. J. Gordon, D* D* %
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How ^
Christ Came to Church
THE PASTOR'S DREAM _^ ^
A SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY
By a. J. GORDON, D. D.
THE LIFE-STORY, AND THE DREAM AS; JKTE*'^-
PRETING THE MAN > .
By a. T. PIERSON, D. O.
Lo, I am with you alway "
The Christ
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York Chicago Toronto
Publishers of Evangelical Literature
AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY
1420 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia
BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO ST. LOUIS DALLAS ATLANTA
MDCCCXCVI
THE NEW YORK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
744436
A8TOR, LENOX AND
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
R 1916 L
Copyright 189s by the
A»iERICAN^ BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY
CONTENTS
PAGB
PART I
The Life-Story vii-xxiii
PART II
How Christ Came to Church . . . 25-92
I. The Dream . . . . , 27
II. Here To-day . , 33
III. And to Come Again 44
IV. If I Had not Come 56
V. In Thy Light 65
VI. The Temple of God is Holy 74
VII. Cleansing the Temple 85
VI CONTENTS
PART III
The Dream as Interpreting the
Man 93-149
I. Loyalty to the Person of Christ . , 100
II. The Personal Coming of Christ ... 106
III. The Sacredness of the Preacher's
Vocation 113
IV. Jealousy for Divine Worship 121
V. The Authority of the Word of God 127
VI. The Scriptural Pattern of Church
Life 133
VII. The Presidency of the Spirit in the
Church 139
VIII. The Last Message to the Church , . 146
PART I
THE LIFE-STORY
THE LIFE-STORY
0\V simple and brief are the outlines of
a human life. And yet only eternity
can fill out those outlines, and make
visible the unseen mysteries which we call
character and influence.
Adoniram Judson Gordon
IVas bom April ig, iSj6.
Was cojiverted to God in i8j2, and was bap-
tized the same year.
Was in New London, from i8^j to 183'j ; in
Brown University , from iSjy to i860 ; in Newto7i
Theological Seminary , from i860 to i86j.
Ordaif led at Jamaica Plain, June, i86j.
Married to Maria Hale, October ij, iS6j.
Removed to Boston, December, i86g.
Departed this life, February 2, i8g^.
*■ THE LIFE-STORY
This life thus reaches over a period lacking
little of three-score years, and may be roughly
divided into three parts, each embracing about
twenty years : the first twenty, his growth to man-
hood ; the second twenty, his development as a
Bible student and preacher of the word ; and the
third period being especially memorable for his
maturity as a Spirit-filled teacher and leader.
The character and life of Dr. Gordon are so
rich, both in incident and suggestion, so full of
lessons in living for generations to come, that it is
proposed to prepare a fuller biography hereafter.
But, by way of introducing this marvelous per-
sonality to readers who were acquainted with the
man only through his writings or public utterances,
it may be well to give a brief sketch, as in profile,
of his leading characteristics, and especially such
as may help to elucidate the experiences connected
with the dream, here recorded.
Dr. Gordon will long be remembered as a
prince among the preachers and teachers of the
modern pulpit. With preachers, as with music-
ians, there are different and distinct classes, and
it is easy to find to which he belongs.
Some study to express the word and mind of
God ; they are exegetes. Others study their own
states and express their own spiritual moods and
experiences ; they are autobiographers. Others
deal in divine conceptions, but invest them with
the interest of their own experimental history ;
THE LIFE-STORY XI
these are witnesses and reach the truest ideal.
Dr. Gordon was one of these. No man's preach-
ing was a more faithful exposition of the word of
God. He would have counted it an affront to the
Scriptures to use them as a mere convenience to
hang his own thoughts on, or caricature them by
a misapplication of sacred words. He was both
too original in research and too independent in
opinion, to become a mere reflector of others'
views, like the copyist, or substitute sound for
sense like the dealer in platitudes. He honestly,
patiently, and prayerfully studied the word of
God, and then illustrated — we might almost say
illuminated — it by his own experience.
No review of this life, however hasty, must
leave out his work as an author. Ten marked
contributions to the literature of the age remain,
apart from the editorials and more transient arti-
cles in the "Watchword," the rehgious news-
papers, the "Missionary Review," etc. His
books fall into five classes. One on "The Min-
istry of Healing," another, his "Coronation
Hymnal," and this last, his " Spiritual Autobiog-
raphy," must stand by themselves. Then there
are four precious books which center about the
person of Christ : "In Christ," "The Two-fold
Life," "Grace and Glory," and "Ecce Venit,"
Two have specially to do with the Holy Spirit :
"The Ministry of the Spirit," and the "Holy
Spirit in Missions." But what a wide range and
XU THE LIFE-STORY
scope of treatment, and on what vital themes ! It
is not too much to say of these books that they
constitute rehgious classics, and ought to form
part of every well-furnished library.
In his literary style three things are peculiarly
prominent : first, his vigorous and discriminating
use of language ; secondly, his marvelous power
of analysis and antithesis ; and thirdly, his simple,
natural, forceful illustrations. In these respects
his writings will repay any one for critical and
habitual study. If the literary productions of
any man of this century can in these respects
supply a better model for young men who are pre-
paring to preach, we know not where they are to
be found. Dr. Gordon's book, for instance, on
the " Ministry of the Spirit," is so tersely written
and so carefully wrought out in every part, that
there is scarcely one needless noun or heedless
adjective in all the sixty thousand words w^hich
compose it ; while every page bristles with new
and instructive suggestions ; and the whole is so
reverent and worshipful that it suggests a man
consciously treading on holy ground.
Twenty-five years of this serviceable life were
spent in the Clarendon Street Church, Boston ;
and in helping to mold that church into conformity
with primitive apostolic models was found the
crowning work of his life. It implies neither
exaggeration of his own merit nor depreciation of
the service of any other man to affirm that it was
THE LIFE-STORY XUl
permitted to him, amid the atmosphere of Unita-
rianism and hberahsm, to build up a beheving
brotherhood, characterized by as simple worship,
pure doctrine, and primitive practice as any other
in the world.
To those who are familiar with the inner secrets
of the life of this church, its central charm is one
which is not apparent to the common eye : the
adnmtistration of the Holy Spirit is there devoutly
recognized and practically realized. The beloved
pastor sought, and with great success, to impress
upon his people the fact that in the body of Christ
the Holy Spirit literally though invisibly indwells ; ;
that he is ready, if he finds a willing people, to •
oversee and administer all that pertains to the
affairs of the body of Christ ; and that, as his
administration both demands and depends upon
co-operation, there must be neither secular men
nor secular methods introduced into the practical
conduct of Christ's church, but the Spirit of God
must be recognized and realized as the Divine , ,
Archbishop finding there his See. It took years '^
to get this practically wrought into the life of the \
church ; but under his persistent teaching and
patient pastoral guidance, there came a gradual
elimination of worldly elements, and a gradual
transformation of the whole church as a working
body until it has become a model for other
churches, approximating very closely to the apos-
tolic pattern.
XIV THE LIFE-STORY
Dr. Gordon has written many noble books
and pamphlets ; but among all the volumes he has
produced, this is the most complete and satisfac-
tory. This church is his permanent " living epis-
tle." The golden pen of action, held in the firm
hand of an inspired purpose, has been for a quar-
ter of a century writing out its sentences in living
deeds, to be known and read of all men. And
the greatest problem now awaiting solution is,
how far this church is going to prove that the
Holy Spirit still administers the body of Christ
there. Should these brethren show that they have
been inwardly saying, "I am of Dr. Gordon,"
rather than, "I am of Christ" ; and were this
church to prove only a sheaf, of which the pastor
was the bond, and which when the bond is
removed falls apart, it would be a world-wide
reproach. If, on the other hand, it shall not only
as an organization survive the pastor's removal,
but shall preserve jealously the high type of excel-
lence it attained under his ministry ; shall prove
not man-centered but Christ-centered ; and shall
regard itself as a kind of legatee unto whom the
pastor has committed the gospel he preached, the
work he began, and the witness he maintained, to
be guarded and perpetuated — this survival of the
whole work when the w^orkman has gone up
higher, will be a testimony to the whole church
and the whole world, as mighty and as far-
reaching as any witness of its sort in our generation.
THE LIFE-STORY XV
It is a growing conviction that the hfe-work of
Dr. Gordon has reached singular completeness,
a rounded symmetry and sphericity. Nothing
seems wanting. In the beauty of Christian char-
acter and culture he had so grown into the meas-
ure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that it
may be doubted whether the whole communion of
believers presented one man more ripe in godliness
and usefulness. He was in every sense a great
man : great in his mind, in his genius, having not
only the administrative but the creative faculty ;
not only organizing but originating. His versatil-
ity was amazing. He would have been great in
many spheres. Had he been a judge, with what
judicial equity and probity he would have adorned
the bench. Had he been a trained musician,
what glorious oratorios he might have given to the
world. Had he been called to rule an empire,
with what mingled ability and urbanity he would
have discharged imperial functions.
But if he was not great in the eyes of men, he
was great in the eyes of the Lord, and greatest
because of his humility. Ordinary progress is
from infancy to manhood ; but, as Hudson Taylor
says, Christian progress is in the reverse order,
from manhood perpetually backward toward the
cradle, becoming a Httle child again, one of God's
little ones, for it is the little ones that get carried
in the Father's arms and fondled.
**» Coleridge sagaciously hints that the highest
xvi THE LIFE-STORY
accompaniment of genius in the moral sphere is
the carrying forward of the feehngs of youth into
the period of manhood and old age. Dr. Gordon
more than any man I ever knew remained to the
last perfectly childlike, while he put away and left
behind whatever was childish.
In estimating the character of Dr. Gordon
great stress should be laid on these childlike traits.
The ma7i of God was emphatically a child of God.
He never lost his simplicity ; he rather grew
toward it than away from It ; there was a per-
petual return toward the spirit, attitude, and habi-
tude of a babe in Christ. His humility and meek-
ness, his frankness and candor, his generosity and
gentleness, will always stand out conspicuous in
the remembrance of all who knew him best.
The love that flooded him was, however, a
supernatural grace. Seldom do we find such
energy of conviction softened by such charity for
differing conviction. His creed was steeped in
love. He disarmed criticism by magnanimity, and
blunted the weapons of controversy by the impreg-
nable armor of an imperturbable equanimity.
While I was with him on one of our missionary
tours, he gave utterance to certain convictions
which met strong opposition ; but one of his most
stubborn opponents confessed that he would
rather hear Dr. Gordon when he did not agree
with him than any other man when he did.
One of the most beautiful features of his work
THE LIFE-STORY XVll
and character was his unconsciousness of the leal
greatness of his attainment and achievement.
When the Spirit of God controls a disciple, growth
in grace and power and service becomes so
natural and necessary as to be largely unconscious
and in a sense involuntary. Great results come
without human planning, certainly without human
boasting. Mrs. Stowe said of "Uncle Tom's
Cabin," that greatest work of modern fiction, that
it was never begun or carried on by her with any
thought of doing any great thing or becoming
famous. She was simply possessed of an idea
which she had to Avork out in a natural way, and
she was a pen in the hands of God. And so
yielding herself to him as an instrument, a book
was produced which God used as a lever to upturn
and overturn a monstrous fabric of wrong which
it took a hundred years to build, and which was
buttressed by commercial gains and carnal self-
interest, and justified in the name of morality and
even religion. A book was given to the world
which Palmerston thrice read for its lessons on
statesmanship, and which has been translated into
fifty tongues.
This Boston pastor, even at the very last, when
his successful pastorate seemed so solitary in its
greatness, had no sense of having done any great
thing ; or if the thought of his superb triumph ever
was suggested to him by others, he could only
answer : " What hath God wrought ! " "A man
XVIU THE LIFE-STORY
can receive nothing except it be given him from
heaven."
It is true, success of such sort as his is always
costly. No man ever attains such exceptional
godliness, or achieves such exceptional usefulness,
w^ithout getting a reputation for being eccentric, or
as a fanatic, if not a heretic. Aristotle long ago
said that there is no great genius without some
mixture of madness ; nothing supremely grand or
superior was ever wrought save by a soul agitated
by some great unrest and upheaved by some great
purpose. The torrents that are the melting of
stainless snows, high up toward heaven, and
w^hich rush down the side of the mountain to
carry healing waters afar to dry and desert wastes,
leave a scarred and torn mountain's breast behind.
But, as Keith Falconer said : We must not fear
to be thought eccentric, for what is eccentricity
but being out of center? and we must be out of
center as to the world if we would be adjusted to
that other divine center of which the world knows
nothing.
Such success also costs self-abnegation. The
whole raising of our church-life depends on the
higher standard of our ministry. " Like people,
like priest." The ministry is the supreme flower
and fruit of church-life — as to growth, its sign of
consummation ; as to fruit, its seed of propagation
and reproduction. The ambition after a cultivated
ministry flatters pride and carnality. But there is
THE LIFE-STORY XIX
a culture which is fatal to the highest fruitfulness
in holy things. The common wild rose has a
perfectly developed seed vessel, but the double
rose, the triumph of horticulture, has none — the
ovaries being by cultivation absorbed into stamen
and petal : the beauty of the blossom is at the
expense of the fertility of the seed vessel. There
is a type of ministerial scholarship that is destruc-
tively critical and proudly intellectual, and hinders
soul-saving. Let it not be thought that it cost
Dr. Gordon nothing to renounce and resign the
proud throne among pulpit orators and biblical
scholars which his gifts seemed to offer, and
seek simply to be a Spirit-filled man — consenting
to be misunderstood, misrepresented, ridiculed,
that he might be loyal to the still small voice
within his soul !
This beloved brother stands out as a man, a
man of singularly gifted mind, with rare insight
into truth and clear methods of thinking and
expressing thought ; a man of large and noble
heart, quick in sympathy, quickened into divine
love, and knowing the "expulsive power of a
new affection ' ' for Christ ; a man of clean, pure
tongue, whose speech was seasoned with salt and
always with grace, anointed with power ; a man
of blameless life, in whose conduct the Babylon-
ian conspirators would have found as little flaw as
in Daniel's.
But he interests us most of all as the rniMt of
XX THE LIFE-STORY
God, the man of the Book, versed in the word of
God ; the ' ' man in Christ ' ' whom we have known
since " fourteen years ago," who looked back for
his faith to Christ's first advent, and forward for
his hope to his second coming ; the man of the
Holy Ghost in whom the Spirit dwelt, and who
dwelt in the Spirit, as the air is in us and we in it,
his element ; and as the man of God, of Christ,
of the Spirit ; in the church, a faithful preacher,
loving pastor ; and in the world, not of it, yet
evermore to it a blessing.
Personally, the writer who pens this loving
tribute never thinks of Dr. Gordon without recall-
ing one specially memorable and delightful experi-
ence of association with him in a mission tour
among the churches of Auld Scotland in 1888.
After the World's Conference on Missions in
Exeter Hall, London, and while we were en route
to the "Eternal City," an invitation came from
the Scottish capital, so urgent and earnest, that
we should visit Edinburgh in the interest of mis-
sions before the students in the theological schools
had scattered for the season, that he felt moved
to abandon the Continental trip, and we went
back from Paris, arriving at Edinburgh in time
for a garden party at the grounds of Duncan
McLaren, Esq., on Saturday afternoon, July 14.
Then followed in rapid succession colossal meet-
ings in the famous "Synod Halls" of the Free
\ Church, and United Presbyterian body. And so
THE LIFE-STORY Xxi
great was the impression made by Dr. Gordon's
knowledge of missions, grasp of the whole sub-
ject, and especially his mingled earnestness and
unction, that on the sixteenth of July a crusade
was proposed to be undertaken by him and the
the writer jointly, among the churches of Scot-
land. The pressure was so great that we yielded
as to the will of God, and after a week in Edin-
burgh, with other great meetings in the Synod
Halls, we left together, visiting Oban, Inverness,
Strathpeffer, Nairn, Forres, Elgin, and Aberdeen,
where we spent August 5th. Dr. Gordon then
felt called to return to America, and the rest of
the tour was without his helpful inspiration. But
wherever he went in 1888 he is remembered, and
will not be forgotten while this generation lasts.
That year the impulse thus given to missions was
such that more candidates offered and more money
was contributed than in any previous year. Would
that such a man could have been spared to make
a world-tour of missions and carry a like inspira-
tion elsewhere ! When we think of such a man,
taken from us in his very prime, when we might
have counted on twenty years more of service, we
can only remember the words of Holy Scripture :
" Be still, and know that I am God."
" I was dumb with silence : "
" I opened not my mouth because Thou
didst it."
" What I do thou knowest not now ; "
XXll THE LIFE-STORY
" But thou shalt know hereafter."
We have not yet come to the point where we
may penetrate the thick darkness where God
dwells, and know the secrets of his purpose who
doeth all things well. We can only trust blindly
in the promise that all things work together for
good to them that love God.
' ' Ye sorrow not as others which have no
hope." Sorrow is not forbidden, but a hopeless
sorrow is also a faithless sorrow.
We begin the New Testament with Rama,
where Rachel's disconsolate grief still echoes,
weeping and refusing to be comforted for those
who are not. But we are to leave Rama behind
as we find Him who says : "I am the Resurrec-
tion and the Life," and move on in his company
toward the New Jerusalem.
Even the Psalm of Moses (90 : 15, 16) teaches
us a sublime lesson in divine compensation,
"Make us glad according to the days wherein
thou hast afflicted us." An inspired prayer is
also a prophecy. If we submit cheerfully to him
he will give us gladness for every affliction and
evil day, and even so great a sorrow as this shall
somehow be turned into joy.
Professor Chapell has suggested a most appro-
priate quotation as the epitaph of this holy man and
witness for Christ :
''I think it 7neet, as lo7ig as I am in this taberftacie.
To stir you up by putting you in re7neinbrance ;
THE LIFE-STORY XXUl
Knowing that shortly I must put off this my taber-
nacle,
Even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shelved 7ne.
Moreover I will e?tdeavour that ye may be able
After my decease
To have these things always in remembt'atice.
For we have not followed cun7iingly devised fables^
When we jnade known imto you
The power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ' ' i
1 2 Peter i : 13-16.
PART II
HOW
CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
THE DREAM
OT that I attach any importance to
dreams or ever have done so. Of the
hundreds which have come in the
night season I cannot remember one which has
proved to have had any prophetic significance
either for good or ill. As a rule moreover, dreams
are incongruous rather than serious, a jumble of
impossible conditions in which persons and things
utterly remote and unconnected are brought
together in a single scene. But the one which
I now describe was unlike any other within my
remembrance, in that it was so orderly in its
movement, so consistent in its parts, and so fitly
framed together as a whole. I recognize it only
as a dream ; and yet I confess that the impression
of it was so vivid that in spite of myself memory
brings it back to me again and again, as though
it were an actual occurrence in my personal
history.
And yet why should it be told or deliberately
committed to print ? "I will come to visions and
revelations of the Lord," says the apostle. His
27
28 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
was undeniably a real, divinely given, and super-
natural vision. But from the ecstasy of it,
wherein he was caught up into paradise and
heard unspeakable words, he immediately lets
himself down to the common level of discipleship.
"Yet of myself I will not glory but in my infirm-
ities." God help us to keep to this good con-
fession evermore ; and if perchance any unusual
lesson is taught even "in visions of the night
when deep sleep falleth on men ' ' let us not set
ourselves up as the Lord's favorites to whom he
has granted especial court privileges in the king-
dom of heaven. No, the dream is not repeated
as though it were a credential of peculiar saint-
ship, or as though by it God had favored me with
a supernatural revelation ; but because it contains
a simple and obvious lesson, out of which the
entire book which we are now writing has been
evolved.
It was Saturday night, when wearied from the
work of preparing Sunday's sermon, that I fell
asleep and the dream came. I was in the pulpit
before a full congregation, just ready to begin my
sermon, when a stranger entered and passed
slowly up the left aisle of the church looking first
to the one side and then to the other as though
silently asking with his eyes that some one would
give him a seat. He had proceeded nearly half-
way up the aisle when a gentleman stepped out
and offered him a place in his pew, which was
THE DREAM 29
quietly accepted. Excepting the face and features
of the stranger everything in the scene is distinctly
remembered — the number of the pew, the Chris-
tian man who offered its hospitality, the exact seat
which was occupied. Only the countenance of
the visitor could never be recalled. That his face
wore a peculiarly serious look, as of one who had
known some great sorrow, is clearly impressed on
my mind. His bearing too was exceeding humble,
his dress poor and plain, and from the beginning
to the end of the service he gave the most respect-
ful attention to the preacher. Immediately as I
began my sermon my attention became riveted on
this hearer. If I would avert my eyes from him
for a moment they would instinctively return to
him, so that he held my attention rather than I
held his till the discourse was ended.
To myself I said constantly, "Who can that
stranger be ? " and then I mentally resolved to
find out by going to him and making his acquaint-
ance as soon as the service should be over. But
after the benediction had been given the departing
congregation filed into the aisles and before I
could reach him the visitor had left the house.
The gentleman with whom he had sat remained
behind however ; and approaching him with great
eagerness I asked : ' ' Can you tell me who that
stranger was who sat in your pew this morning ? ' '
In the most matter-of-course way he replied :
•' Why, do you not know that man ? It was Jesus
30 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
of Nazareth." With a sense of the keenest dis-
appointment I said: "My dear sir, why did you
let him go without introducing me to him ? I was
so desirous to speak with him." And with the
same nonchalant air the gentleman replied : ' ' Oh,
do not be troubled. He has been here to-day,
and no doubt he will come again."
And now came an indescribable rush of emo-
tion. As when a strong current is suddenly
checked, the stream rolls back upon itself and is
choked in its own foam, so the intense curiosity
which had been going out toward the mysterious
hearer now returned upon the preacher : and the
Lord himself " whose I am and whom I serve"
had been listening to me to-day. What was I
saying ? Was I preaching on some popular theme
in order to catch the ear of the public ? Well,
thank God it was of himself I was speaking.
However imperfectly done, it was Christ and him
crucified whom I was holding up this morning.
But in what spirit did I preach ? Was it ' ' Christ
crucified preached in a crucified style " ? or did
the preacher magnify himself while exalting
Christ ? So anxious and painful did these ques-
tionings become that I was about to ask the brother
with whom he had sat if the Lord had said any-
thing to him concerning the sermon, but a sense
of propriety and self-respect at once checked the
suggestion. Then immediately other questions
began with equal vehemence to crowd into the
THE DREAM 3I
mind. "What did he think of our sanctuary, its
gothic arches, its stained windows, its costly and
powerful organ ? How was he impressed with the
music and the order of the worship ? " It did not
seem at that moment as though I could ever again
care or have the smallest curiosity as to what men
might say of preaching, worship, or church, if I
could only know that he had not been displeased,
that he would not withhold his feet from coming
again because he had been grieved at what he
might have seen or heard.
We speak of " a momentous occasion. ' ' This,
though in sleep, was recognized as such by the
dreamer — a lifetime, almost an eternity of interest
crowded into a single solemn moment. One present
for an hour who could tell me all I have so longed
to know ; who could point out to me the imperfec-
tions of my service ; who could reveal to me my
real self, to whom, perhaps, I am most a stranger ;
who could correct the errors in our worship to
which long usage and accepted tradition may have
rendered us insensible. While I had been preach-
ing for a half-hour He had been here and listening
who could have told me all this and infinitely
more — and my eyes had been holden that I knew
him not; and now he had gone. "Yet a little
while I am with you and then I go unto him that
sent me."
One thought, however, lingered in my mind
with something of comfort and more of awe. ' 'He
32 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
has been here to-day, ajid no doubt he will come
again ' ' / and mentally repeating these words as
one regretfully meditating on a vanished vision,
" I awoke, and it was a dream," No, it was not
a dream. It was a vision of the deepest reality, a
miniature of an actual ministry, verifying the
statement often repeated that sometimes we are
most awake toward God when we are asleep
toward the world.
II
HERE TO-DAY
ERE to-day, and to come again." In
this single sentence the two critical
turning-points of an extended ministry
are marked. It is not what we have but what we
know that we have which determines our material
or spiritual wealth. A poor farmer owned a piece
of hard, rocky land from which, at the price of
only the severest toil, he was able to support his
family. He died and bequeathed his farm to his
eldest son. By an accident the son discovered
traces of gold on the land which, being explored,
was found to contain mineral wealth of immense
value. The father had had precisely the same
property which the son now possessed, but while
the one lived and died a poor man the other
became independently rich. And yet the differ-
ence between the two depended entirely upon the
fact that the son knew what he had, and the
father did not know. ' ' Where two or three are
gathered in my name there a77t I in the midst of
them,'" says Christ.
Then the dream was literally true, was it?
3 33
V i
34 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
Yes. If this promise of the Son of God means
what it says, Jesus of Nazareth was present not
only on that Sunday morning, but on every Sun-
day morning when his disciples assemble for wor-
ship. "Why, then, oh preacher, did you not fix
your attention on him from the first day you stood
up in the congregation as his witness, asking how
you might please him before once raising the ques-
tion how you might please the people, and how in
your ministry you might have his help above the
help of every other ? Was the dream which cam.e
to you in the transient visions of the night more
real to you than his own promise, 'Lo, I am with]
you alway,' which is given in that word which
endureth forever?" Alas, that it was ever so!
It is not what we know but what we know that we
know which constitutes our spiritual wealth. I
must have read and expounded these words of
Jesus again and again during my ministry, but
somehow for years they had no really practical
meaning to me. Then came a blessed and ever-
to-be-remembered crisis in my spiritual life when
from a deeper insight into Scripture the doctrine
of the Holy Spirit began to open to me. Now I
apprehended how and in what sense Jesus is pres-
ent : not in some figurative or even potential sense,
but literally and really present in the Holy Spirit,
his invisible self. "And I will pray the Father,
■j and he shall give you another Comforter, that he
may abide with you for ever'' (John 14 : 16).
HERE TO-DAY 35
The coming of this other Paraclete was con-
ditioned on the departure of Jesus : " If I go I
will send him unto you." And this promise was
perfectly fulfilled on Pentecost. As truly as Christ
went up, the Holy Ghost came down : the one
took his place at the Father's right hand in
heaven, the other took his seat in the church on
earth which is ' ' builded together for a habitation
of God in the Spirit. ' ' And yet, lest by this dis-
course about his going and the Comforter's com-
ing we should be led to think that it is not Christ "
who is with us, he says, clearly referring to the
Spirit : "I will not leave you orphans ; / will
come to you.'" Thus it is made plain that the
Lord himself is truly though invisibly here in the
midst of every company of disciples gathered in
any place in his name.
If Christ came to church and sat in one of the
pews, what then ? Would not the minister con-
strain him to preach to the people and allow him-
self to be a listener ? If he were to dechne and
say: "I am among you as one that heareth,"
would he not beg him at least to give the congre-
gation some message of his own through the lips
of the preacher ? If an offering for the spread of
the gospel among the heathen were to be asked on
that morning, would not the Master be besought
to make the plea and to tell the people how he
himself " though rich, for our sakes became poor
that we through his poverty might be rich " ? If
36 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
any strife existed in the flock, would there not be
an earnest appeal to him, the Good Shepherd, to
guide his own sheep into the right way and to
preserve the fold in peace ?
Ah, yes. And Christ did come to church and
abode there, but we knew it not, and therefore
we took all the burden of teaching and collecting
and governing on ourselves till we were often
wearied with a load too heavy for us to bear.
Well do we remember those days when drudgery
was pushed to the point of desperation. The
hearers must be moved to repentance and confes-
sion of Christ ; therefore more effort must be
devoted to the sermon, more hours to elaborating
its periods, more pungency put into its sentences,
more study bestowed on its delivery. And then
came the disappointment that few, if any were
converted by all this which had cost a week of
solid toil. And now attention was turned to the
prayer meeting as the possible seat of the difficulty
— so few attending it and so little readiness to par-
ticipate in its services. A pulpit scourging must
be laid on next Sunday, and the sharpest sting
which words can effect put into the lash. Alas,
there is no increase in the attendance, and instead
of spontaneity in prayer and witnessing there is a
silence which seems almost like sullenness ! Then
the administration goes wrong and opposition is
encountered among officials, so that caucusing
must be undertaken to get the members to vote as
HERE TO-DAY 37
they should. Thus the burdens of anxiety increase
while we are trying to lighten them, and should-be
helpers become hinderers, till discouragement
comes and sleepless nights ensue ; these hot
boxes on the train of our activities necessitating
a stop and a visit of the doctor, with the verdict
over-work and the remedy absolute rest.
It was after much of all this of which even the
most intimate friends knew nothing, that there
came one day a still voice of admonition, saying,
' ' There standeth one among you whom ye know
not.'' And perhaps I answered, "Who is he.
Lord, that I might know him?" I had known
the Holy Ghost as a heavenly influence to be
invoked, but somehow I had not grasped the
truth that he is a Person of the Godhead who
came down to earth at a definite time and who has
been in the church ever since, just as really as
Jesus was here during the thirty and three years
of his earthly life.
Precisely here was the defect. For it may be a
question whose loss is the greater, his who thinks
that Christ is present with him when he is not, or
his who thinks not that Christ is present with him
when he is ? Recall the story of the missing child
Jesus and how it is said that " they supposing him
to be in the company went forward a day's jour-
ney." Alas, of how many nominal Christians is
this true to-day ! They journey on for years, say-
ing prayers, reciting creeds, pronouncing confes-
38 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
sions, giving alms, and doing duties, imagining
all the time that because of these things Christ is
with them. Happy are they if their mistake is
not discovered too late for them to retrace their
steps and to find, through personal regeneration,
the renewed heart which constitutes the absolute
essential to companionship with the Son of God.
On the other hand, how many true Christians
toil on, bearing burdens and assuming responsi-
bilities far too great for their natural strength,
utterly forgetful that the mighty Burden-bearer of ,
the world is with them to do for them and through
them that which they have undertaken to accom-
plish alone ! Happy also for these if some weary
day the blessed Paraclete, the invisible Christ,
shall say to them, ' 'Have I been so long time with
you and yet hast thou 7iot known me f ' So it
happened to the writer. The strong Son of God
revealed himself as being evermore in his church,
and I knew him, not through a sudden burst of
revelation, not through some thrilling experience
of instantaneous sanctification, but by a quiet,
sure, and steady discovery, increasing unto more
and more. Jesus in the Spirit stood with me in a
kind of spiritual epiphany and just as definitely
and irrevocably as I once took Christ crucified as
my sin-bearer I now took the Holy Spirit for my
burden-bearer.
" Then you received the baptism of the Holy
Spirit did you?" some one will ask. Well, we
HERE TO-DAY 39
prefer not to use an expression which is not strictly
bibhcal. The great promise, " Ye shall be baptized
in the Holy Ghost" was fulfilled on the day of
Pentecost once for all, as it seems to us. Then
the Paraclete was given for the entire dispensation,
and the whole church present and future was
brought into the economy of the Spirit, as it is
written : " For in one Spirit were we all baptized )
into one body " (i Cor. 12 : 13, R. V.). But for >
God to give is one thing ; for us to receive is quite
another. "God so loved that he gave his only \
begotten Son," is the word of our Lord to Nico-
demus. But it is written also : "As many as
received him to them gave he power to become
the sons of God." In order to regeneration and
sonship it is as absolutely essential for us to
receive as for God to have given. So on the day
of Pentecost the Holy Spirit, as the Comforter,
Advocate, Helper, and Teacher and Guide, was
given to the church. The disciples who before
had been regenerated by the Spirit, as is commonly
held, now received the Holy Ghost to qualify and
empower them for service. It was another and
higher experience than that which they had
hitherto known. It is the difference between the
Holy Spirit for renewal and the Holy Spirit for
ministry. Even Jesus, begotten by the Holy
Ghost and therefore called ' ' the Son of God,
did not enter upon his public service till he had
been "anointed," or "sealed," vnth that same
40 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
Spirit through whom he had been begotten. So
of his immediate apostles ; so of Paul, who had
been converted on the way to Damascus. So of
the others mentioned in the Acts, as the Samaritan
Christians and the Ephesian disciples (19 : 1-8).
And not a few thoughtful students of Scripture
maintain that the same order still holds good ;
that there is such a thing as receiving the Holy
Ghost in order to qualification for service. It is
not denied that many may have this blessing in
immediate connection with their conversion, from
which it need not necessarily be separated. Only
let it be marked that as the giving of the Spirit by
the Father is plainly spoken of, so distinctly is the
receiving of the Spirit on the part of the disciples
constantly named in Scripture. When the risen
Christ breathed on his disciples and said :
" Receive ye the Holy Ghost," it is an active not
a passive reception which is pointed out, as in the
invitation: "Whosoever will, let him take the
water of life freely." Here the same word is
used as also in the Epistle to the Galatians.
' ' Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law,
or by the hearing of faith ? " (3:2).
God forbid that we should lay claim to any
higher attainment than the humblest. We are
simply trying to answer, as best we may from
Scripture, the question asked above about the bap-
tism of the Holy Ghost. On the whole, and after
prolonged study of the Scripture, we cannot resist
HERE TO-DAY 4I
this conviction : As Christ, the second person of
the Godhead, came to earth to make atonement
for sin and to give eternal hfe, and as sinners we
must receive him by faith in order to forgiveness
and sonship, so the Holy Spirit, the third person
of the Godhead, came to the earth to communi-
cate the "power from on high" ; and we
must as believers in like manner receive him by
faith in order to be qualified for service. Both
gifts have been bestowed, but it is not what we
have but what we know that we hav^e by a con-
scious appropriating faith, which determines our
spiritual wealth. Why then should we be satisfied
with "the forgiveness of sins, according to the
riches of his grace " (Eph. i : 7), when the Lord
would grant us also "according to the riches of
his glory, to be strenghened with might by his
Spirit in the inner man " ? (Eph. 3 : 16.)
To return to personal experience. I am glad
that one of the most conservative as well as emi-
nent theological professors of our times, has put
this matter exactly as I should desire to see it
stated. He says: " If a reference to personal
experience may be permitted, I may indeed here
set my seal. Never shall I forget the gain to con-
scious faith and peace which came to my own soul
not long after the first decisive and appropriating
view of the crucified Lord as the sinner's sacrifice
of peace, from a more intelligent and conscious
hold upon the living and most gracious personality
42 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
of the Holy Spirit through whose mercy the soul
had got that view. It was a new development of
insight into the love of God. It was a new con-
tact, as it were, with the inner and eternal move-
ments of redeeming love and power, and a new
discovery in divine resources. At such a time of
finding gratitude and love and adoration we gain
a new, a newly realized reason and motive power
and rest." ^
" A conscious hold upon the personality of the
Holy Spirit ; " "a newly realized motive power."
Such it was ; not the sending down of some new
power from heaven in answer to long waiting and
prayer, but an "articulating into" a power
already here, but hitherto imperfectly known and
appropriated. Just in front of the study window
where I write is a street, above which it is said
that a powerful electric current is constantly mov-
ing. I cannot see that current : it does not
report itself to hearing, or sight, or taste, or smell,
and so far as the testimony of the senses is to be
taken, I might reasonably discredit its existence.
But I see a slender arm, called the trolley, reach-
ing up and touching it ; and immediately the car
with its heavy load of passengers moves along the
track as though seized in the grasp of some mighty
giant. The power had been there before, only
now the car lays hold of it or is rather laid hold
1 Principal H. C. G. Moule, Ridley Hall, Cambridge, Eng.,
"Veni Creator Spiritus," p. 13.
HERE TO-DAY 43
of by it, since it was a touch, not a grip, through
which the motion was communicated. And would
it be presumptuous for one to say that he had
known something of a similar contact with not
merely a divine force but a divine person ? The
change which ensued may be described thus :
Instead of praying constantly for the descent of a
divine influence there was now a surrender, how-
ever imperfect, to a divine and ever-present
Being : instead of a constant effort to make use of
the Holy Spirit for doing my work there arose a
clear and abiding conviction that the true secret
of service lay in so yielding to the Holy Spirit that
he might use me to do his work. Would that the
ideal might be so perfectly realized that over what-
ever remains of an earthly ministry, be it shorter
or longer, might be written the slightly changed
motto of Adolphe Monod :
' 'All through Christ : i7i the Holy Spirit : for
the glory of God. All else is nothing. ' '
Ill
AND TO COME AGAIN
HE apprehension of the doctrine of
Christ's second advent came eariier
than the realization of the other doc-
trine, that of his abiding presence in the church
in the Holy Spirit. But its discovery constituted
a no less distinct crisis in my ministry. "This
same Jesus, which is taken up from you into
heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have
seen hitn go into heaven,'' is the parting promise
of Jesus to his disciples, communicated through
the two men in white apparel, as a cloud received
him out of their sight. When after more than
fifty years in glory he breaks the silence and
speaks once more in the Revelation which he
gave to his servant John, the post-ascension
Gospel which he sends opens with, ''Behold, he
Cometh with clouds, ' ' and closes with ' 'Surely I
come quickly. '' Considering the solemn emphasis
thus laid upon this doctrine, and considering the
great prominence given to it throughout the teach-
ing of our Lord and of his apostles, how was it
that for the first five years of my pastoral life it
AND TO COME AGAIN 45
had absolutely no place in my preaching ?
Undoubtedly the reason lay in the lack of early
instruction. Of all the sermons heard from child-
hood on, I do not remember Hstening to a single
one upon this subject. In the theological course,
while this truth had its place indeed, it was taught
as in most theological seminaries of this country,
according to the post-millennial interpretation ;
and with the most reverent respect for the teachers
holding this view I must express my mature con-
viction that, though the doctrine of our Lord's
second coming is not ignored in this system, it is
placed in such a setting as to render it quite
impractical as a theme for preaching and quite
inoperative as a motive for Christian living. For
if a millennium must intervene before the return
of our Lord from heaven, or if the world's con-
version must be accomplished before he shall
come in his glory, how is it possible for his dis-
ciples in this present time to obey his words :
' ' Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour
your Lord shall come ' ' ?
I well remember in my early ministry hearing
two humble and consecrated laymen speaking of
this hope in the meetings of the church, and urg-
ing it upon Christians as the ground of unworld-
liness and watchfulness of life. Discussion fol-
lowed with these good brethren, and then a search-
ing of the Scriptures to see if these things were
so ; and then a conviction of their truth : and
46 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
then ? The godly Wilham Hevvitson declares that
the discovery of the scriptural hope of our Lord' s
second coming wrought in him a change amount-
ing almost to a second conversion. What if
another, not presuming to be named in company
with this consecrated saint, should nevertheless
set his hand and seal to the affirmation that the
strongest and most permanent impulse of his min-
istry came from his apprehension of the blessed
hope of our Lord's second coming ?
But how is it that this doctrine, so plainly and
conspicuously written in Scripture, could have
remained so long undiscovered ? In answering
this question we see how little ground we have for
glorying over the Jews. They did not recognize
Christ in his first advent because they discerned in
Scripture only those predictions which announced
him as a reigning and conquering Messiah. This
conception they wove into a veil of exposition and
tradition so thick that when Jesus appeared as the
lowly and humble Nazarene they knew him not,
but " hid as it were their faces from him." And
this strong prepossession still obscures their vision
so that "even unto this day when Moses is read
the veil is upon their heart.
With the larger mass of Gentile Christians the
case is just the reverse. They know Christ cruci-
fied, and beheving that the Cross is to conquer the
world and that the preaching of the gospel in the
present dispensation is to bring all men to God,
AND TO COME AGAIN 47
they see no need of the personal coming- of the
Christ as king to subdue all things under his feet
and to reign visibly on the earth. This concep-
tion in turn has been woven into an elaborate
veil of tradition for Gentile believers and " until
this day, remaineth the same veil untaken away
in the reading of the New Testament.
It was not so in the beginning. For three
hundred years the church occupied the position
of a bride awaiting the return of the bridegroom
from heaven — she, meantime, holding herself free
from all alliance with this world, content to fulfill
her calling in witnessing for Christ, in suffering
with Christ, and so to accomphsh her appointed
work of the gathering out of the elect body for the
Lord "until he come." A strange and almost
grotesque conception to many modern Christians
no doubt. But it was while maintaining this atti-
tude that the church moved on most rapidly and
irresistibly in her missionary conquests.
Then came the foreshado wings of the great
apostasy. The world which had been a foe to
the church became her friend and patron ; Con-
stantine, the emperor of Rome, became her head,
and thus the eyes of Christians began to be with-
drawn from him who is " Head over all things to
his church." The great and good Augustine
yielded to the seduction and was among the first
to teach that in the temporal triumph of Christi-
anity the kingdom had already come, though the
48 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
King with whose return the primitive church had
been wont to identify the appearing of the king-
dom was still absent. Little by little, as the
apostasy deepened, this early hope of Christians
became eclipsed till, in the words of Auberlin,
" when the church became a harlot she ceased to
be a bride who goes forth to meet her Bride-
groom," and thus chiliasm disappeared. What
moreover would have been deemed an apostasy in
the primitive church grew into a tradition and a
creed in the post-Nicene church, which creed until
this day largely rules the faith of Christians.
Within fifty years, however, there has been a
widespread revival of the early teaching on this
point, especially among the most eminent evan-
gelists and missionary promoters, until to-day in a
great company of devout Christians, the uplifted
gaze is once more visible, and the advent cry
"Even so come. Lord Jesus," is once more
heard.
"But tell me," we hear some one saying,
"how it is that this doctrine can have such an
inspiring and uplifting influence as you claim for
it?" We answer, in more ways than can be
described in a single chapter.
" The doctrine of the Lord's second coming as
it appears in the New Testament," says an emi-
nent Scotch preacher, ' ' is like a lofty mountain
which dominates the entire landscape." An
admirable illustration ! For in such a case, no
AND TO COME AGAIN 49
matter what road you take, no matter what pass
you tread, you will find the mountain bursting on
your vision at every turn of the way and at every
parting of the hills. What first struck me now, in
reading the New Testament, was something like
this : Whatever doctrine I was pursuing, whatever
precept I was enforcing, I found it fronting toward
and terminating in the hope of the Lord's second
coming. Is watchfulness amid the allurements of
the world enjoined, the exhortation is: "Watch
therefore ; for ye kiiozv not what hour your Lord
doth come'' (Matt. 24: 42). Is patience under
trial and injustice counseled ? The word is : "Be
patient therefore, brethren, imto the coming of the
Lord'' (James 5 : 7). Is an ideal church pre-
sented concerning whose deportment the apostle
" needs not to speak anything " ? Its commenda-
tion is : "Ye turned to God from idols to serve
the living and true God ; and to wait for his Son
from heaven" (i Thess. i : 9, 10). Is holy living-
urged ? This is the inspiring motive thereto :
"That, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,
we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in
this present world ; looking for that blessed hope,
and the glorious appearing of the great God and
our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Titus 2 : 12, 13). All
paths of obedience and service lead onward to the
mountain. Our command to service bids us
"Occupy till I come" (Luke 19 : 13). In observ-
ing the Lord's Supper we " shew the Lord's death
50 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
//// he come'" (i Cor. ii : 26). In the injunction
to fidelity the word is that we "keep this com-
mandment without spot, unrebukable, until the
appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ " (i Tim. 6 :
14). Let any candid reader collate the texts in
the New Testament on this subject, and he will
see that our statement as to the pre-eminence of
this doctrine is not exaggerated.
To pursue the figure farther. As all the roads
lead toward the mountain, so conversely the
mountain looks out upon all the roads. Take
your stand in the doctrine of the Lord's coming
and make it your point of observation for viewing
Scripture, and your map of redemption will very
soon take shape, and the relation of part to part
will become apparent. Just as Christ crucified
is the center of soteriology, so Christ coming again
is the center of eschatology. Place the Saviour
Avhere the Scriptures place him, on the cross —
" who his own self bare our sins in his own body
on the tree " — and all the teachings of the cere-
monial law become intelligible, and its types and
offerings fit together into one harmonious system.
God forbid that we should by a grain's weight
lesson the emphasis upon Christ crucified. This
is the central fact of redemption accomplished.
Even so put Christ coming into his scriptural place
and all the prophecies and Messianic hopes of the
Old Testament and the New become intelligible —
the establishment of the kingdom, the restoration
AND TO COME AGAIN 5 1
of Israel, the renewing of all things. These two
centers — Christ crucified and Christ coming —
must be rigidly maintained if all the Bible is to be
utiHzed and all its teachings harmonized.
So the writer bears joyful testimony that the
discovery of this primitive doctrine of the gospel,
the personal pre-millennial coming of Christ, con-
stituted a new era in his study of the word of God,
and gave an opening-out into vistas of truth
hitherto undreamed of. And moreover, apart
from the question of eschatology, it was the means
af the deepest and firmest anchoring in all the
doctrines of the evangelical faith. Why should
not this be the case ? If it is true, as one has
said, that " when the smallest doctrine in the body
of truth is mutilated it is sure to avenge itself
upon the whole system," why should it not be even
more certainly the case, that one of the mountain
truths of Scripture being recognized, all neighbor-
ing doctrines should be lifted into distincter prom-
inence around its base ? At all events, I confess
myself so indebted to this hope in every way, that
I cannot measure the loss it would have been to
have passed through a ministry of twenty-five years
without knowledge of it.
And as to the relation of this truth to Christian
life : Is not an unworldly and single-eyed ministry
the supreme need in these days of a materialized
civilization and a secularized church ? And where
shall the most powerful motive to such a ministry
52 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
be found ? No one who reads the New Testament
carefidly can deny that our Lord has lodged it in
the hope of his second coming. We may not see
how the doctrine should have that effect ; but if he
has so ordained, it will certainly be found true in
actual experience. I recall a lecture which I heard
some years since from a scholarly preacher in
which he aimed to show that Christ's second com-
ing so far from being personal and literal is a spir-
itual and perpetual fact ; that he is coming all the
time in civilization, in the diffusion of Christianity,
and in the march of human progress. He closed
his argument by questioning seriously what prac-
tical influence upon Christian life the anticipation
of an event so mysterious and so uncertain as to
time and circumstance can have. Being asked to
speak, 1 related a Httle household incident which
had recently occurred. Having gone into the
country with my children for a few weeks' vaca-
tion, I had planned with them many pleasant
diversions and engagements for the holidays, when
almost upon my arrival I was summoned back to
the city on an important mission. In the disap-
pointment of the children I said to them ; " Chil-
dren, I am going to the city to-day. But I shall
soon be back again. I may come to-morrow, or
the next day, or the day after, or possibly not till
the end of the week, but you may expect me any
time." It so happened that I was detained until
Saturday. But when I returned I learned that in
AND TO COME AGAIxV 53
their eagerness to welcome me back the children,
contrary to their natural instincts, had insisted on
having their faces washed every day and upon
having on their clean clothes and going down to
meet me at train time. "A good stoiy,"
exclaimed the lecturer, "but it is not an argu-
ment." Ah, but is it not? Human life is often
found to be the best expositor of Scripture. He
who put his sublimest doctrines into parables
drawn from common experience can often be best
understood through some homely household inci-
dent. He would have his servants always washed,
and clothed in white raiment during his absence.
If we believe that he will not return till hundreds
of years have elapsed, we may reasonably delay
our purification and make no haste to put on our
white raiment. But what if his coming is ever
imminent ? Let this truth be deeply realized and
let the parables in which he affirms it become
household words to us, and who shall say that it
will be without effect ? One at least may with all
humility testify to its influence in shaping his min-
istry. Without imparting any sombre hue to Chris-
tian life ; without " replacing glory with gloom ' ' in
the heart which should rejoice evermore, it is
enough to say that when ' ' the solemn MaraiiatJia
resounds constantly through the soul, the most
powerful impulse is awakened toward our doing with
all diligence what he would have us do, and our
being with all the heart what he would have us be.
54 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
" Then your dream came true, did it ?" No ;
rather it had been true before it was dreamed, and
the vision was a kind of resume of a quarter-cen-
tury ministry. Here now in the Holy Spirit and
to come again in person ! These were two discov-
eries which, added to the fundamental truths
already realized, brought unspeakable blessing
into one Christian experience. We reiterate
emphatically that that night-vision has never been
regarded as anything supernatural or extraordi-
nary in itself. Nevertheless there it stands to-day
in the hall of memory, a dream-parable as clean-
cut and distinctly outlined as a marble statue,
with the legend inwrought in it, ''Hereto-day and
to come to-morroiu,'' so that in spite of knowledge
to the contrary it comes back again and again as
an occurrence of actual history. Call it a dream
of mysticism ? What if rather it might be named
a vision of primitivism ? The most eminent living
master of ecclesiastical history, Harnack, photo-
graphing in a single sentence the church of the
earliest centuries, says : " Originally the church
was the heavenly Bride of Christ, the abiding
place of the Holy Spirit.'" Does the reader not
see that here is the same twofold conception —
Christ in-resident in the church by the Spirit ; and
Christ expected to return in person as the Bride-
groom for his bride ? This was the church which
moved with such rapid and triumphant progress
against ancient heathenism. With no power
AND TO COME AGAIN 55
except "the irresistible might of weakness";
with no wealth except the riches of glory inherited
through her heavenly citizenship ; refusing all
compromise with the world, declining all patron-
age of kings and emperors, she nevertheless went
forth conquering and to conquer, till in a few
years she had undermined the whole colossal fabric
of paganism. And might not the church of Christ
do the same to-day if she were to return to this
primitive ideal ? and if renouncing her dependence
on human resources — wealth and power and
social prestige, she were to inscribe upon her
banner that ancient motto : ' ' Not by might nor
by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord."
Such is the train of questioning started by a dream.
IV
IF I HAD NOT COME
[O see Christ is to see ourselves by start-
ling contrast. The religious leaders of
our Saviour's day were sinners before
they knew him, but their sin was not manifested.
" If I had not come and spoken unto them they
had not had sin," said Jesus, "but now they
have no cloak for their sin." The Son of God is
Christies Revelator before he is Christus Salvator.
No truer testimony to the Messiahship was ever
uttered than that of the Samaritan woman :
" Come and see a man that told me all things
that ever I did. Is not this the Christ ? "
If Christ came to church it were a sacred
privilege to entertain him ; and evermore the
aisles which he had trodden would be counted
holy ground. But are we ready for the revelations
which his coming is sure to bring ? His glory
would certainly manifest our guilt. Ah, yes !
And his lowly garb would also rebuke our costly
attire, and his deep humility would shame the
diamonds on jeweled Christian fingers. Does
the reader remember how, in the dream, I saw
56
IF I HAD NOT COME 57
him looking first to the one side and then to the
other, as he walked up the aisle on that Sunday
morning, as though silently begging for a seat ?
Well, though there had been misgivings and ques-
tionings about our system of pew rentals, with the
sittings so graded that one could read the relative
financial standing of the worshipers by noting
their position in the broad aisles, the matter had
not come home to me as a really serious question
till Christ came to church on that morning.
Judging by his dress and bearing it was evident
that were he to become a regular attendant, he
could not afford the best pew in the house : and
this was distressing to think of, since I knew from
Scripture that he has long since been accorded the
highest place in heaven, " angels and authorities
and powers being made subject unto him." And
there were other things in our worship whose
presence caused great searchings of heart, so
soon as the Master of assemblies was recognized
as being there.
To translate the dream into plain literal prose :
When it became a realized and unquestionable
fact that, in the person of the Holy Ghost, Jesus
is just as truly in the midst of the church as he
once stood in the company of his disciples and
" showed them his hands and his feet," then the
whole house began to be searched as with a lifted
candle. Yes ! And he is among us no longer
* ' as one that serveth ' ' but as "a Son over his
58 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
own house, whose house are we if we hold fast
the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm
unto the end." We who worship and we who
conduct worship are simply his servants to do only
what he bids us do, and to speak and act by the
guidance of his Spirit.
And judgment began with the pulpit as that
mysterious man in yonder pew looked toward it
and listened, though he spoke not a word. The
theme had been scriptural and evangelical, as we
have already said : but with what spirit was it
presented ? We have " preached the gospel unto
you in the Holy Ghost se?it forth from heaven ' '
(i Peter i : 12, R. V.), is almost the only homi-
letical direction found in Scripture. And yet how
deep and searching the words ! We are not to
use the Holy Spirit in preaching : he is to use us.
As the wind pours through the organ pipes,
causing their voice to be heard, albeit according
to the distinctive tone and pitch of each, so the
Spirit speaks through each minister of Christ
according to his special gift, that the people may
hear the word of the Lord. Is it not the most
subtle temptation which comes to the preacher that
he allow himself to be played upon by some other
spirit than the Paraclete ? the popular desire for
eloquence, for humor, for entertainment, for wit,
and originality, moving him before he is aware, to
speak for the applause of men rather than for
the approval of Christ ? Not until the presence
IF I HAD NOT COME 59
in the assembly of the Spirit of the Lord is recog-
nized does this error come painfully home to the
conscience. We must not enter into personal
experience here, further than to tell the reader
how repeatedly we have turned to the following
paragraph in the Journal of John Woolman, the
Quaker, and read and re-read it :
' ' One day, being under a strong exercise of
spirit, I stood up and said some words in meeting,
but not keeping close to the divine opening, I said
more than was required of me. Being soon sen-
sible of my error, I was afflicted in mind some
weeks, without any light or comfort even to that
degree that I could not take satisfaction in any-
thing. I remembered God and was troubled, and
in the depth of my distress he had pity on me,
and sent the Comforter. . . , Being thus hum-
bled and disciplined under the cross, my imder-
standijig became more stre7igtheiied to distmginsk
the pure Spirit which moves inwardly jipo?i the
heart, and which taught me to wait in silence,
sometimes many weeks together, until I felt that
rise which prepares the creature to stand like
a trumpet through which the Lord speaks to his
flock."
Here is a bit of heart biography so antique and
strange to that spirit of unrestrained utterance
which characterizes our time, that it almost needs
an interpreter to make it intelligible ; but if one
has ever considered deeply the requirement to
6o HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
speak in the Spirit, its meaning will be very plain.
Is it not as true of our spirits as of our bodies that
the severest colds which we contract come to us
from sitting in a draught ? Perhaps a current of
popular applause strikes us and before we know
it our fervor has become chilled, and then we find
ourselves preaching self instead of preaching
Christ, giving more heed to r!ietorical effect than
to spiritual impression, till the Lord mercifully
humbles us and shows us our sin. Well were it
if we could sometimes impose on ourselves the
penance of "silence many weeks together" till
we should learn to "keep close to the divine
opening."
What was it then that Jesus in the Spirit
seemed to demand as he appeared in church that
morning ? What but the freedom of the place
accorded to him who builded the house and there-
fore " hath more honor than the house " ? Is it
not written that " where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty ' ' ? Not liberty for us to do as we
will surely, but liberty for him to do as he will.
And where is the Spirit now but in the church, his
only sanctuary in this dispensation ? Let there be
no restrictions on his house then, lest — if in his
revelation the Spirit shall.
Show us that loving man
That rules the courts of bliss,
coming into our assembly to-day "poor and in
vile raiment " — he shall hear the word : " Stand
IF I HAD NOT COME 6 1
thou there or sit here under my footstool ; " while
to the ' ' man with a gold ring and goodly apparel
the invitation is given : "Sit thou here in a good
place."
And the Spirit must have equal liberty in the
pulpit, so that if he choose to come into the ser-
mon in the garb of plain and homely speech, he
may not be refused a hearing. Indeed, it was
just this accusation that came to one unveiled
heart as Christ showed himself in yonder pew —
the conviction that he might have been fenced
out of the sermon many times when he had desired
to be heard therein, because the discourse had
been so elaborately pre-arranged and so exactly
written out that after-thoughts were excluded
though they should come direct from him.
Ah, yes ; and that was not the deepest revela-
tion. If Christ is present in the pulpit he must
think his thoughts through us as well as speak his
words by our lips. And what if these thoughts,
like their Master, should be to some hearers like
"a root out of a dry ground," having no beauty
that they should desire them ? Art thou ready,
oh preacher, to take all the consequences of letting
the Lord speak through thee as he will ? This
may sometimes lead thee out of the beaten path
of accepted opinion and into ways that seem
devious to sacred tradition. And this in turn,
though done in humility, may bring upon thee the
accusation of pride of opinion as though thou wert
62 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
saying : "I have more understanding than all my
teachers." Does the reader know the story of
John Tauler, the mystic, and of that anointing and
illumination of the Spirit which came to him after
he had been for several years an eloquent
preacher ? He represents some former teacher as
chiding him for departing from his instructions ;
to which he replies : " But if the highest Teacher
of all truth come to a man he must be empty and
quit of all else and hear his voice only. Know
ye that when this same Master cometh to me he
teaches me more in one hour than you and all the
doctors from Adam down." Bold words ! Let
us reverence our teachers and seek to know how
much the Lord hath taught us through them ; let
the words of commentators, who have prayed and
pored over God's holy word to search out precious
ore for us, be honored for all the wealth that they
have brought to us, knowing that only " with all
saints,'" can we "comprehend what is the
breadth and length and depth and height" of
the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.
Nevertheless, it is good sometimes with Tauler
"to be empty and quit of all else and hear his
voice only." And that it might be so is perhaps
the reason why Christ came to church that day.
The world is full of books which demand our
study if we would know the mysteries of God ;
criticism has set up its "scientific method,"
declaring that what in the Bible cannot stand the
IF I HAD NOT COME 63
test must be discarded. But while the vendors
of learning are crying " Lo here," and " Lo
there," the Good Shepherd speaks, saying : " My
sheep hear my voice " ; and he is still in the fold
to care for his own, to lead them into green pas-
tures where the freshest and sweetest truth is
found ; to make them lie down by still waters in
which they may see his own blessed face reflected.
Only let not the sheep hear the voice of strangers
who know not the truth : let them hear only Christ.
He is not present in the church by his Spirit as
critic and censor of the preacher, but as his gra-
cious helper and counselor. Then give him lib-
erty of utterance in your sermon, oh, man of
God ! All our acquirements in knowledge of the
world, all our mastery of style and expression he
will use, if it is surrendered to him. But this is
not enough. There must be such a line of Scrip-
ture exposition in the sermon that the Spirit shall
have free course to " ride triumphantly through it
in his own chariot," the inspired word ; and there
must be in it such windows looking toward "the
divine opening" that he may find entrance at
every point with suggestions, illuminations, inspi-
rations. Let those who know bear witness whether,
when preaching in such a frame, thoughts have
not come in, far better than any which we had
premeditated, lessons, illustrations, and admoni-
tions fitted to the occasion and to the hearer as we
could never have fitted them of ourselves. " So
64 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
after many mortifications and failures when going
to this warfare at mine own charges," writes one,
" I found that on this day I had been at ease and
had had liberty in prophesying, and withal had
spoken better than I knew, and I said : ' Surely
the Lord is in this place and I knew it not.'
Give me to see thee and to feel
The mutual vision clear ;
The things unseen reveal, reveal,
And let me know them near.
V
IN THY LIGHT
llTHIN the church of God the quaUty of
actions depends not altogether upon
I what they are in themselves, but what
they are in their relation to Christ. Many things,
quite innocent in their proper sphere, become
profane when brought into that temple where God,
the Holy Ghost, has his dwelling place.
That mysterious stranger who awed me by his
presence in church on that morning, is no ascetic.
It cannot be forgotten that he once mingled in the
festivities of a marriage feast in Cana, and that he
drew about him sportive children and took them
in his arms and blessed them. "And if Christ
is such a one, oh preacher ! do not make his
church a mournful place where we must repress
all exhibitions of natural joy and social good
cheer, and becomxe as the hypocrites are who dis-
figure their faces that they may appear unto men
to fast." Well-spoken counsel, no doubt! Yet
Christ is still Christ ; and he has never outgrown
the print of the nails. So confident of this am I
that in dreaming over my dream in waking hours,
S 65
66 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
it always seemed certain to me that, had I come
near to him on that memorable Sabbath morning,
I should have discerned the marks of his crucifix-
ion in his body. What John the apostle is repre-
sented as saying of our Lord still holds true :
Cheerful he was to us :
But let me tell you, sons, he was within
A pensive man, and always had a load
Upon his spirits.
A convivial Christ is not quite the personage
that rises up before us in the prophets and in the
Gospels. And yet when one observes the pleas-
ant devices for introducing men to him, which
abound in the modern church — the music, the
feasts, the festivals, and the entertainments — it
would seem as though this were a very prevalent
conception. No ! Jesus is the serious Christ,
the faithful and true witness who will never cover
up his scars in order to win disciples. Our latter
day Christianity would not abolish the cross
indeed, but it seeks so to festoon it with flowers,
that the offense thereof may be hidden out of sight.
If Christ crucified is "unto the Greeks foolish-
ness," why not first present him in some other
character if any of this cultured people are among
the hearers ? But does not the reader remember
that when " certain Greeks " came to worship at
the feast, saying " we would see Jesus," the first
recorded word which the Saviour spoke to them
was : "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a
IN THY LIGHT. 6/
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it
abideth alone ; but if it die it bringeth forth much
fruit," thus presenting the whole deep doctrine of
the cross in a single condensed parable ? Never
has there been such a laborious attempt to popu-
larize Christ as in the closing years of this nine-
teenth century. But if the Saviour were to come
to church and reveal himself to those who have
so mistaken his identity, we can well think of his
saying : " Behold my hands and my feet that it is
If?tyself; handle me and see." Ah, yes ! here
are the tokens by which we recognize his real per-
sonality. "I perceive that Christ suffered only
his wounds to be touched after he had risen from
the dead," says Pascal, "as though he would
teach us that henceforth we can be united to him
only through his sufferings."
But it is Christ in the Spirit not Christ in the
flesh whom we recognize as dwelling in the church
now ; and it is the church as a spiritual temple
builded of living stones, not a material structure
fashioned of wood or granite and consecrated to
the Lord of which we are now speaking. Yes,
and out of this conception came the heartsearch-
ing and the house-searching of which we write.
I have told the reader how having in vision
recognized Christ as present on that morning, an
intense anxiety seized me as to whether every-
thing in the ordering of his house was as he would
have it.
68 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
There was a choir in yonder gallery, employed
at an expense of nearly three thousand dollars, to
sing the praises of God in his church. Some of
the number were believers ; the larger part made
no profession of discipleship, and some were con-
fessed disbelievers. But they had fine voices,
therefore were they there. No word of criticism
can be passed upon them, since they were serving
solely by the appointment of the church. But
when now the presence of Christ by the Holy
Ghost was realized, the minister of the flock began
to have pangs of indescribable misgiving about
this way of administering the service of song.
Had it not been a method long in vogue ? Yes.
And did it not conform to the general usage of
Christian congregations ? Yes. Then why have
scruples about it ? There might have been none
but for the presence of that revered man from
heaven. But Christ has come to church : "and
who may abide the day of his coming ? and who
shall stand when he appeareth ? for he is like a
refiner's fire and like fuller's soap." And the
burning of that fire began from that day, and
could never thenceforth be quenched : and the
cleansing must now go on to the end.
Does the Scripture deal in poetry or in fact
when it says to the church, the body of behevers :
• • Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and
that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" Into
the inner court of that Jewish temple went the
IN THY LIGHT 69
high priest alone, once every year, " not without
bloody Not the less rigidly was it required of
the common priests who ' ' went into the first taber-
nacle, accomplishing the service of God," that
they should come first to the brazen altar of sacri-
fice and then to the laver of cleansing in order to
be qualified for their ministry. And these things
happened for ensamples unto us. The types are
as rigid and unchangeable in their teaching
as mathematics. The altar and the laver ; the
blood and the water : our justification by the cross
and our sanctification by the Spirit — these two are
absolutely prerequisite and their order is forever
fixed. David under the old covenant sought for
the true qualification of an acceptable worshiper
when he prayed : "Purge me with hyssop and I
shall be cleati ; wash me and I shall be whiter
than snowy It was first the blood and then the
water. The exhortation to the worshiper under the
new covenant is precisely the same : " Let us draw
near, . . . having our hearts sprinkled from an
evil conscience and having our bodies washed
with pure water'' (Heb. lo : 22). First cleans-
ing by the blood, then sanctification by the
Spirit.
The congregation of the regenerate church now
constitutes the earthly priesthood under Christ our
great High Priest. He could not enter into the
holiest in heaven except by his own blood ; no more
can any one on earth perform the smallest service
yo HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
in the worship of his house — that " holy temple in
the Lord, builded together for a habitation of God
through the Spirit " — who has not been justified by
the blood of Christ. This was the deep and abid-
ing conviction which seized one minister of Christ
as his eyes were opened by the coming of the Lord
to search his sanctuary. And then followed unut-
terable distress of conscience about this whole
grave question. There were those singers standing
above the communion table, leading a divinely
appointed ministry of song. And yet the question
had never been asked whether they had come under
the cleansing of the blood of Christ and the renew-
ing of the Holy Spirit ; only whether they had fine
voices, well trained and harmonious. The situation
brought such burden of soul that sometimes the
whole service — the prayer, the praise, the sermon
— was gone through with under indescribable con-
straint and spiritual repression. When the mind
of Christ was sought for in the matter, his voice
was heard saying : " God is a Spirit, and they that
worship him must worship in spirit and i7t truths
Half the stanzas sung in an ordinary service are
such that unconverted persons could not possibly
sing them in truth, and none of them could they
sing in "the Spirit." Then came the habit
of searching for hymns more neutral and more
remote from Christian experience, lest I should be
the occasion of causing any to speak falsely in
God's presence. And more than all, came what
IN THY LIGHT Jl
may be called a corporate conviction, a taking of
blame on behalf of the whole church concerning
this matter. For plainly the sin seemed nothing
else than simony. The Lord has appointed the
Holy Ghost to be the inspirer and director of
sacred song in his temple: "Be filled with the
Spirit, speaking one to another in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making
melody with your heart to the Lord " (Eph. 5:18,
19, R. v.). This delight of sacred song is greatly
coveted ; and they who have wealth say, "We
will give you three thousand dollars that you may
buy this gift of the Holy Ghost, and may bring in
singing men and singing women, the best that can
be procured, that the attractions of our sanctuary
may not be a whit behind the chiefest in all the
city." And it seemed to me that the voice of the
Spirit concerning it all would be: " Thy money
perish with thee, because thou hast thought
that the gift of God may be purchased with
money."
Then in thought the vision came back, and
yonder silent Christ seemed to speak : " Reach
hither thy finger and behold my hands ; and
reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side."
And while we wondered he reasoned with us
saying: "Who think ye that I am, oh, my
brethren ? And wherefore came I unto that
hour when my soul was exceeding sorrowful, even
unto death ? ' ' Was it that you might live deli-
72 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
cately and bring in the minstrels to perform before
you in my house ? Behold they that live deli-
cately are in king's courts ; but ye are they whom
I have appointed to bear the cross and to fill up
that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ for
his body's sake, which is the church. " The sac-
rifice of praise, even tJte fruit of the lips,'' have I
enjoined upon you ; but the luxury of sumptuous
music, who has required it at your hands ? Where-
fore do ye spend your money for that which is not
bread, when millions are perishing for the bread
of life which I have commanded you to bring
them ; and I still wait to see of the travail of my
soul and be satisfied ?
As I heard all this the whole heart became
sick. I thought of churches which were bestowing
ten times, and in some instances fifty times as
much for artistic music as they contributed to for-
eign missions, and I said : " We are believers by
the cleansing of the blood and by the indwelling
of the Spirit ; have been constituted ' a spiritual
house, an holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sac-
rifices '/ but instead of using our ministry in hum-
ble dependence on the Holy Ghost, we have
brought up minstrels from Egypt, that ' music
with its voluptuous swell ' may take the place of
that chastened, self-denying, holy song which
no man can learn but they that have been
redeemed."
And out of this storm of questioning and mis-
IN THY LIGHT 73
giving, and all this deep inquisition of conscience,
there arose at last one of the calmest, maturesr,
and most unconquerable convictions of my life.
I could never in any circumstance accept a min-
istry where the worship appointed by God has
been so perverted by men. Not in the language
of metaphor or of poetry, but in the words of
literal truth I hear God saying : ''For the teinple
of God is holy, which temple ye are.'' When I
can consent to have the communion table moved
out into the court of the Gentiles, and call upon
the thoughtless and unconverted to receive the
sacred elements lying thereon, then I may see the
propriety of bringing a choir of unregenerated
musical artists into the Holy of Holies of the
church, and of committing to their direction the
service of song. This conviction rests neither
upon prejudice nor preference, but upon the fixed
assurance that in the house of God I am servant,
not the master, and that I have no alternative but
to comply strictly with the divine arrangements of
the church fixed by the Lord himself.
When I had written all this I imagined I heard
some reader exclaiming : "Is not this a Pharisee
of the Pharisees risen up within the Christian
church, and tithing the mint, anise and cummin
of religious worship ? Is there really any ground
for his scruples, or anything practical in his
suggestions ? ' ' Let this appear in later chapters.
VI
THE TEMPLE OF GOD IS HOLY
RECALL a sermon by President Way-
land, preached while I was a student,
in which he spoke thus, in brief, about
amusements: "You ask me if it is sinful for
Christians to play cards. Well, you remember
that the Roman soldiers threw dice and cast lots
while our Saviour was dying on the cross. But
you as his disciples, had you been present, could
not have taken part in that game of chance.
And why should you do so now before whose eyes
Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified
among you ? "
It was a practical and pointed way of setting
forth a great principle. The church, which has
journeyed on for nearly nineteen hundred years,
has never left the crucified Christ behind. I make
no reference here to a material sanctuary with the
cross and passion, — symbols wrought into its eccle-
siastical architecture, — but to that " holy temple
in the Lord ' ' in which we are ' ' builded together
for a habitation of God through the Spirit." It is
in this house that we stand during the entire dis-
THE TEMPLE OF GOD IS HOLY 75
cussion. As we mark on every hand its divine
architecture, we observe that the cross is inwrought
with each article of its furniture. In the ordinance
through which we enter the temple, we are
''baptized into his death.'''' In the communion
which we keep perpetually within its courts, we
" do show the Lord' s death till he corned In the
pulpit where the gospel is proclaimed, " we preach
Christ crucified, the power of God and the wisdom
of God." In the songs which we sing we offer
*' the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that
is the fruit of our lips." Thus the crucified One
is visible in every service and sacrament of his
temple. That solemn stranger in yonder pew did
not "cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be
heard " in his temple ; for in each act of worship
he had ordained that his word should be heard,
saying : "I am he that liveth and was dead, and
behold I am alive for evermore."
Once standing within this holy temple of the
church a great apostle wept because " the enemies
of the cross of Christ " had come in thither (Phil.
3 : 18, 19). Who were they ? Heretics, who had
denied the atonement and effaced Christ crucified
from their creed ? Apostates, who by their fall
from grace had "crucified the Son of God
afresh ' ' ? No ! They were worldlings who had
defiled the temple by their unseemly self-indul-
gences. And has the Lord no occasion to weep
as he visits his church to-day ? And do his five
'J^ HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
bleeding wounds never plead in silent protest
against what is done therein ? I speak not of the
one congregation into which he came in vision on
that memorable Sabbath morning. The encroach-
ments of secularism had advanced quite far
enough therein to give occasion for sincere regret
at their remembrance. But they were slight
in comparison with what we have witnessed
elsewhere.
' ' Know ye not that ye are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? If
any man defile the temple of God, hi?n shall God
destroy ; for the temple of God is holy, which
temple ye are'' (i Cor. 3 : 16, 17). We do not
judge that the defilement here mentioned is that
of personal impurity, in which one sins against
his own body by the indulgence of fleshly lusts and
passions. Though the words are often applied in
this way there seems to be no good ground for
so construing them. It is the corporate body
which is spoken of, not the individual body ; and
to defile the temple of God is to profane that tem-
ple by bringing into its precincts idolatrous rights
and ceremonies, secular and carnal indulgences,
unsanctified amusements and frivilous entertain-
ments to minister to "the lusts of the eyes, the
lusts of the flesh, and the pride of life." Here we
shall refer only to what we know as being carried
on within the circle of Protestant and evangelical
churches, confessing- as we do so, that it is a
THE TEMPLE OF GOD IS HOLY 7/
shame even to speak of the things done by them in
pubhc. Nevertheless we must look at the unseemly
catalogue : Performers brought from the opera or
from the theatre on Sunday to regale the ears of
the church with some flighty song of artistic
musical display ; a star vioHnist dressed in the
style of his profession, preparing the way for the
sermon by a brilliant and fantastic solo ; a curtain
drawn across the pulpit platform on a week-night,
footlights and scenery brought from the play-house,
and a drama enacted by the young people of the
church, ending with a dance by the gayly dressed
children ; a comic reader filling the pulpit on
Monday evening, delivering a caricature sermon
amid the convulsive laughter and hand-clapping
of the Christians present. These are but a few
acts in the comedy which the god of this world is
performing weekly in church assemblies. Taken
with the dramatic readings, literary entertain-
ments, amateur theatricals, fairs, frolics, festivals,
and lotteries, the story is enough to make the
angels of the churches blush, and to give fresh
occasion for an apostle's tears while he utters the
solemn verdict : " For many walk of whom I have
told you often and now tell you even weeping,
that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ ;
whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly,
and whose glory is their shame, who mind earthly
things."
It is well known that certain insects conceal
78 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
their presence by assuming the color of the tree or
leaf on which they prey. Church amusements
are simply parasites hiding under a religious
exterior, while they eat out the life of Christianity.
Sacred concerts, church fairs, ecclesiastical enter-
tainments— how well the words sound in the ears
of the unwary. But when the Lord appeared
walking among the golden candlesticks with
countenance like the sun shining in his strength,
their real inwardness was instantly revealed. In
the midst of the church entertainments, going on
for the avowed purpose of winning the world into
friendship with Christians ; on the walls of the
same church, inscribed in letters of gold, were
texts of Scripture which the " dim religious light "
had so obscured that few seem to have read them :
" If any man love the world, the love of the Father
is not in him,'" and ''Know ye not that the friend-
ship of the world is enmity to God? " When the
Lord came in, these inscriptions began to gleam
out with such a dazzling brightness as the window
panes sometimes exhibit under the rays of the set-
ting sun. Then a great horror of being implicated
in so-called sacred amusements seized upon one
who read these burnmg texts, so that once on
entering a church where such frivolities were
going on, he hastened from the house as the aged
Apostle John in Ephesus is said to have fled from
the bath on discovering that the heretic Cerinthus
was present.
THE TEMPLE OF GOD IS HOLY 79
If any shall name such scruples phariseeism or
religious prudery, then come g.nd let us reason
together. Go into a Roman Catholic church and
witness the services which are carried on there,
and the question will at once arise, How is it
possible that the simple spiritual worship of the
primitive church could have degenerated into such
a mass of grotesque ceremonials and idolatrous
abominations as are here exhibited ? The answer
is easily found on looking into history. For a
while the church was content to occupy the place
of holy separation from the world appointed her
by the Lord — witnessing for Christ, working for
Christ, waiting for Christ. This austere attitude
gave offense to the heathen who had often desired
to be friendly with the Christians, and were ready
to tolerate their religion if only they would accord
some slight token of respect to their own deities —
a gesture of reverence or a grain of incense.
But all this was rigidly withheld by the disciples of
Christ. Not the smallest concession would they
make to pagan customs ; not a shred would they
incorporate into their worship from the heathen
ceremonials ; and so long as they maintained this
spirit, they went forth conquering and to conquer.
Then, upon the enthronement of Constantine,
the sentiment gradually changed, and the notion
grew up that in order to convert the heathen it was
necessary to conciliate them by conforming some-
what to their customs. The great Augustine also
8o HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
fell under this delusion, and gave his countenance
to the engrafting into Christian worship of usages
borrowed from the heathen. He said: "When
peace was made (between the emperors of Rome
and the church) the crowd of Gentiles who were
anxious to embrace Christianity were deterred by
this, that whereas they had been accustomed to pass
the holidays in drunkenness and feasting before
their idols, they could not easily consent to forego
these most pernicious yet ancient pleasures. //
seejned good then to our leaders to favor this part of
their weakness, and for those festivals which they
had relinquished, to substitute others in honor of
the holy martyrs, which they might celebrate with
similar luxury, though not with the same
impiety.^" Here is the door opened through
which the whole troop of abominations entered —
saint worship, idol worship, virgin worship — till
in an incredibly short time the church, which had
gone forth to Christianize the heathen, was found
to have become herself completely paganized.
The nineteenth century is presenting almost
the exact facsimile of the fourth century in this
particular. The notion having grown up that we
must entertain men in order to win them to
Christ, every invention for world-pleasing which
human ingenuity can devise has been brought for-
ward till the churches in multitudes of instances
have been turned into play-houses, with theatre-
1 Aug. " Epist.", p. 29.
THE TEMPLE OF GOD IS HOLY 8 1
boards announcing the courses for the gay season,
boldly set up at the doors ; and there is hardly a
carnal amusement that can be named, from bill-
iards to dancing, which does not now find a nest-
ing-place in Christian sanctuaries. Is it then
phariseeism or pessimism to sound the note of
alarm and to predict that at the present fearful
rate of progress, the close of this decade may see
the Protestant church as completely assimilated to
nineteenth century secularism as the Roman
Catholic church was assimilated to fourth century
paganism ?
And this is not all : the temple has been
defiled. " For what agreement hath the temple
of God with idols ; for ye are the temple of God :
as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk
in them, and I will be their God and they shall be
my people." Anything thrust into God's place is
an idol. When, in 2 Thess. 2 : 3, 4, the culmi-
nation of the predicted apostasy is described, it is
said of "the man of sin," that " He as God sit-
teth in the temple of God, showing himself that he
is God." Here, I believe, we have a picture of
the pope, thrusting himself into the seat of the
Holy Spirit, assuming the title of "Vicar of
Christ," which belongs only to that "other Para-
clete " whom Jesus promised to send down to fill
his place during his absence. This sin of unseat-
ing the Holy Ghost in his own temple is so blas-
phemous that its author has no forgiveness, but is
6
82 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
doomed to be destroyed "by the brightness of
Christ's coming." And is there no danger that
Protestantism may fall under the same guilt ?
What if the Holy Spirit is ejected from the choir,
and his office as inspirer of sacred song committed
to a quartette of unconverted musical artists ?
What if he be unseated from the pulpit and the
intellectual discourse substituted for that preaching
of the gospel ' ' with the Holy Ghost sent down
from heaven ' ' which God has appointed ? What
if he be set aside from the administration of the
church, so that, for example, the settling of a pas-
tor shall be made to turn on the votes of uncon-
verted men called ' ' the society, ' ' when the Lord
has spoken about ' ' the flock of God over which
the Holy Ghost hath made yon overseers " f Is
there no peril that by this constant unseating of
the Spirit he may be finally driven from his sanc-
tuary, repeating as he redres the solemn lament
of the Saviour : ' ' Behold your house is left unto
you desolate ' ' ? Wonderful indeed is the patience
of the Comforter ! As the Lord Christ, when
" there was no room for him in the inn," con-
descended to lie in a manger, so the Lord,
the Spirit, when crowded out of pulpit, and choir,
and pew, and seat of authority, may retire into
some obscure retreat of his church, — heart of
humble saint or home of hidden disciple, — wait-
ing patiently to be invited back to his rightful
throne.
THE TEMPLE OF GOD IS HOLY 83
That he may, and sometimes does, finally with-
draw from his temple, there can be no question.
Do we not know of churches once fervently evan-
gehcal which are now lying under the doom of
desertion by the Spirit ? The writer thinks, with
all charity, that he has seen such ; churches upon
which the Lord's sentence has gone forth, " Thou
hast a name that thou livest and art dead." The
body may still remain indeed, the creeds and
Confessions may continue intact, and the forms of
worship may even be multiplied and vastly
"enriched" as the years go on, but these out-
ward forms are only memorials of a departed
glory, like the death-mask which preserves the
mold of features which have long since crumbled
into dust.
If any reader thinks that what v/e are saying
is simply " exposition," we have to add that it is
this and more ; it is experience, and every word
is confirmed in the mouth of heart-witnesses
and conscience-witnesses and church-witnesses.
When an evangelist goes to a congregation to
hold special services, and finds after a day or two
that the whole membership is in a state of sus-
pended animation, let him take a candle, as the
Hebrews did on the eve of Passover, and let him
diligently search the house for leaven. Let him
go into the choir gallery and learn whether a
quartette of unsanctified musicians is seated
there ; let him then go into the vestry and inquire
84 HOV/ CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
whether the winter's programme of church
amusements is still proceeding. He may go far-
ther, but the writer bears solemn witness that even
these two obstructions have been found sufficient
to bar the way to all success in revival effort. It
is written and cannot, without infinite peril, be
forgotten, that the church is " an holy temple in the
Lord'' /that it is " bidlded together for an habita-
tion of God in the Spirit ' ' / that ' ' the Lord is that
Spirit,"" governing and administering therein
with sovereign authority, and that only "where
the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty." Except
he has sanctified instruments in every part of the
house, he cannot move through the assemblies in
victorious freedom of service.
Yet, so inveterate is the tendency to turn away
from the Spirit and to listen to other voices, that
" He that hath the seven Spirits of God," warns
his church from heaven in a seven-fold admoni-
tion repeated at the end of each succeeding chapter
in her seven-fold apocalyptic history : " He that
hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto
the churches."
VII
CLEANSING THE TEMPLE
HY not withdraw from the church which
has become thus secularized and dese-
crated ? To which we reply emphatic-
ally : Until the Holy Spirit withdraws we are not
called upon to do so. And he is infinitely patient,
abiding still in his house so long as there are two
or three who gather in Christ's name to constitute
a templiim in templo, a sanctuary within a sanc-
tuary, where he may find a home.
What the lungs are to the air the church is to
the Holy Spirit ; and each individual believer is
like a cell in those lungs. If every cell is open
and unobstructed the whole body is full of Hght ;
but if through a sudden cold, congestion sets in,
so that the larger number of these cells are closed,
then the entire burden of breathing is thrown
upon the few which remain unobstructed. With
redoubled activity these now inhale and ex-
hale the air, till convalescence shall return.
So we strongly believe that a few Spirit-filled
disciples are sufficient to save a church ; that
the Holy Ghost, acting through these, can and
8s
86 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
does bring back recovery and health to the
entire body.
I saw no whip of small cords in the hands
of that pilgrim-Christ who turned aside f^r a
moment to visit our sanctuary on that ever-remem-
bered Lord's Day morning. The time has not yet
come for judging and punishing those who defile
the temple of God. On the contrary, it seems as
though I heard that gracious stranger say :
"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock : if
any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will
come in to him, and will sup with him, and he
with me." The throne-room of the church where
he has ordained to rule his flock ; the choir-room
where he would preside in the Holy Ghost as the
inspirer of praise ; the pew-rooms into which he
would have freedom of entrance, even when com-
ing in the lowliest garb ; these he did not storm
with violent anathemas, but gently solicited to
open unto him. Woe to those who judge before
the time ! who depart from their brethren, and
slam that door behind them before which Jesus is
gently knocking ; who spue the church out of their
mouths while he, though rebuking it, still loves it
and owns it and invites it to sup with him.
" For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and
death, ' ' writes the apostle. This is the method of
the Lord's present work — death overcome by life.
" I cannot sweep the darkness out but I can shine
CLEANSING THE TEMPLE 8/
it out," said John Newton. We cannot scourge
dead works out of the church, but we can Hve
them out. If we accuse the church with having
the pneumonia let us who are individual air-cells
in that church, breathe deeply and wait patiently
and pray believingly, and one after another of the
obstructed cells will open to the Spirit till conva-
lescence is re-established in every part.
With the deepest humility the writer here sets
his seal of verifying experience. When the truth
of the in-residence of the Spirit and of his pre-
siding in the church of God became a hving con-
viction, then began a constant magnifying of him
in his offices. Several sermons were preached
yearly setting forth the privileges and duties of
Christians under his administration ; special sea-
sons of daily prayer were set apart, extending
sometimes over several weeks, during which con-
tinual intercession was made for the power of the
Holy Ghost. It was not so much prayer for par-
ticular blessings as an effort to get into fellowship
with the Spirit and to be brought into unreserved
surrender to his life and acting. The circle of
those thus praying was thus constantly enlarged.
Then gradually, the result appeared in the whole
church ; the incoming tide began to fill the bays
and inlets, and as it did so the driftwood was dis-
lodged and floated away. Ecclesiastical amuse-
ments dropped off, not so much by the denuncia-
tion of the pulpit, as by the displacement of the
88 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
deepening life. The service of song was quietly-
surrendered back to the congregation and,
instead of the select choir, the church — who con-
stitute the true Levites as well as the appointed
priesthood of the New Dispensation — took up the
sacrifice of praise anew and filled the house with
their song. As noiselessly and irresistibly as the
ascending sap displaces the dead leaves which
have clung all winter long to the trees, so quietly
did the incoming Spirit seem to crowd off the tra-
ditional usages which had hindered our liberty.
Later came the abolition of pew-rentals and the
disuse of church sales for raising money for mis-
sions and other charities. Meantime the pulpit
acquired a liberty hitherto unknown ; the outward
hampering being removed, the inward help
became more and more apparent, and the preacher
felt himself constantly drawn out instead of being
perpetually repressed as in the olden time. The
prayer meeting soon passed beyond the necessity
of being " sustained " and became the most help-
ful nourisher and sustainer of the church. The
place is always filled, and instead of urging the
people to come, or inviting them to participate,
the attendance is joyfully voluntary, and the pray-
ing and testifying always so spontaneous and
hearty that one can scarce rememember when it
has been found needful to urge Christians to the
exercise of these privileges.
It is by no means affirmed that the old leaven
CLEANSING THE TEMPLE 89
has been completely purged out, so that nothing of
the secular and unspiritual remains in the temple
of the Spirit where we worship. No ! If that
Divine Visitant were to appear once more in
yonder pew, and with those eyes which are like a
flame of fire were to search our sanctuary, it pains
me to think what he might discover, which has
hitherto escaped our search. We are only speak-
ing now of a comparative cleansing, deeply sen-
sible of much, both known and unknown, which
yet remains to be accomplished.
But of the result thus far may we speak with-
out glorying. Most apt is Dr. Bonar's story of
the auctioneer, who was commending in glowing
words a picture by one of the old masters, himself
meanwhile standing behind the painting which he
was selling, and allowing it to hide him from view.
All that we are trying to do in this chapter is to
magnify the work of an ' ' old master, ' ' the Gali-
lean Carpenter, who only asked liberty to work
among us that he might build "his own house;
whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence
and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end "
(Heb. 3 : 6). Let his work appear unto his ser-
vants, and let " the workers together with him "
be hidden from view.
I observed neither saw, hammer, nor plane in
his hand when he came into yonder pew on that
morning ; and though from that day he began to
reconstruct the temple, ' ' there was neither ham-
90 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
mer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the
house while it was building." All went on noise-
lessly, so that now we wonder at the progress of
the work.
One freshly anointed was moved to undertake
a mission to the Jews, among whom up to this
time no systematic effort had been made ; the
result — hundreds of Hebrews reached by the gos-
pel, not a few converts won to Christ, and a
Jewish missionary raised up for his people.
Another brother was drawn out on behalf of
the Chinese ; the result — a Chinese mission school
of two hundred ; twenty-five now members of the
church, and one of their number, a veritable
apostle, now returned to his native land, to make
known the gospel to his countrymen.
A newly quickened disciple was drawn to the
work of outdoor preaching ; the result — a band of
young men and women raised up who have gone
to wharves, car-stables, and public squares, with
increasing devotion to this service, which has now
gone on weekly for more than five years.
Others were moved to enter into rescue work
among ruined women ; the result — a home opened
and now a far-reaching effort extending out and
bringing Christians of all names into co-operation.
An industrial home was instituted for intem-
perate and unemployed men ; the result — a shelter
in which thousands have found refuge, and converts
have been won to Christ by hundreds.
CLEANSING THE TEMPLE 9 1
A training school for evangelists was opened,
designed to equip men and women of humble
attainments for Christian work at home and
abroad ; the result — a score of foreign mission-
aries sent out since the work began, four years
ago ; and many more put forth into destitute fields
at home, while a hundred and fifty are now under
instruction.
Meantime evangelistic efforts have reached out
on every side, some "tens " of our brethren being
entirely occupied in this work and as many more
working in the foreign field. By spontaneous free-
will giving the offerings to foreign missions have
steadily increased, rising to ten thousand, to
twelve thousand, and one year to twenty thousand
dollars, as the annual contribution to this work.
And this increase in giving was not the result of
begging or dunning. Much prayer was made and
the strongest evangelical motive urged in behalf
of it. Meantime there has been a freshness and
heartiness in our worship hitherto unknown. The
Spirit has had liberty to break forth in song in
unexpected ways now and then, as when a joyous
young disciple going down to be baptized sang the
strains of "My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou
art mine," as he*- feet touched the water, all the
congregation uniting with overpowering effect.
What could that little quartette box have done
like this ?
So, likewise, there has been an open window
92 HOW CHRIST CAME TO CHURCH
into the sermon through which the Holy Ghost has
come in with unexpected suggestions, fitted for
the occasion. In a word, the law of liberty seems
to have largely supplemented machinery and
organization. And yet, be it noted, that even this
record would not be committed to print save for
one reason, viz., that it is recognized to be not a
"work" but "his workmanship." Not one of
these enterprises was planned beforehand, so that
they could be credited to some superior organizer.
They " grew up, he knoweth not how," who now
tells the story. They are described after much
hesitation, and with prolonged weighing of each
statement, with the hope that they may bring home
the suggestion to some who have not entertained
it, that the Holy Ghost, the present Christ, has
been given to be the administrator of the church ;
and that in these days of endless organizatio7is a?id
multiplied secular machinery, he will surprise us
by showing what he will do if we will give him
unhitidered liberty of action in his own house.
PART III
THE DREAM
AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
HE preceding spiritual autobiography is
based upon a dream. This is not the
first time that a dream has proved a
potent factor in a human Hfe. Those who are
familiar with the history of Catherine of Siena
know how repeated and striking were her visions
by day and by night ; and readers of the life of
Richard Baxter will recall his marked experience,
and that vivid vision of lost opportunities which
so quickened his after activity. Christmas Evans,
also, that prince of Welsh preachers, while yet only
a young convert and on the very night succeeding
the loss of one eye from the assault of ruffianly
violence, had a remarkable dream. He thought
that the awful day of judgment had come, and
seeing the world wrapped in its winding sheet of
flame, he cried out, with mingled terror and con-
fidence, "Lord Jesus, save me!" Then he
beheld the Master turn toward him, and heard him
say : "It was thy intention to preach the gospel ;
but it is now too late, for the day of judgment is
already come." That vision of the darkness
96 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
remained in the day so vivid a reality that the
reflections which it awakened served to fan into a
consuming flame of ardor and fervor his passion
for souls. And he always believed that this and
other dreams were God's messengers sent to com-
municate to him some of the mightiest impulses
that swayed his life.
While, therefore, Dr. Gordon was not the first
man, or preacher of the gospel, whose life, char-
acter, and conduct have been singularly molded
by a dream, he was careful to claim even for this
remarkable and unique experience, no supernat-
ural origin.
" The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell
a dream ;
" And he that hath my word, let him speak my
word faithfully.
' 'What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord. ' '
In strict conformity to this divine injunction,
this dream is told, as such, without affirming for
it, or even implying in it, any authority. Nor is
any philosophy here suggested as to those strange
vagaries of the spirit in the semi-conscious state
of sleep, which seem to belong to the borderland
between insanity and inspiration, and which, after
all these centuries, remain still an unsolved
mystery. Yet, in this instance as in many others,
the fact remains obvious that God has used a
dream to put into life a new meaning, and impart
to holy activity a n.ew momentum.
THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN 97
There is one important law of dreams which
should, however, be recognized : they do sustain
an important relation to the habitual inner life.
Whether by way of correspondence or of contrast,
they serve as a sort of reflection of the mental
moods and spiritual habits. Such a dream as is
here recorded is therefore an index and inter-
preter of the man, and will bear careful study as a
revelation of his inner self.
Dreams, moreover, have this unique pecu-
liarity, that they translate the historical into the
poetical, the actual into the allegorical ; that is,
they weave sensuous impressions or abstract ideas
into concrete and often personal forms. The
imagination, being no more restrained and cor-
rected by the more practical senses, is left to itself
to wander as it wall and build fantastic forms
unchecked by the sober realistic reason. Hence
such a dream as is here crystalized into a narra-
tive, when divested of its purely imaginative and
allegorical dress, becomes a valuable exponent of
the author's inmost habits of thought and feeling.
As such we shall now consider it, believing these
mental habits to supply the most helpful sort of
practical and biographical commentary upon the
striking narrative which was the last product of
Dr. Gordon's gifted pen, and which forms the last
legacy of this holy man and prince among
preachers to the church of his generation.
The dream centers about the personal coming
98 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
of Christ to his own church, his reception there,
the character of the worship he confronted, the
fideUty of the gospel message he heard, the spirit-
ual attitude of the hearers whom he met, and his
general approval or disapproval of the whole
atmosphere of the place of prayer ; and espec-
ially the measure of his recognition of the invisi-
ble presence and presidence of the Holy Spirit in
the body of Christ. Who that knew Adoniram
Judson Gordon needs to be told that such a dream
is not a mere incoherent and senseless vagary of
the mind, for it invests with poetic and allegorical
form the ruling ideas and ideals of his whole
later life, which may be classified somewhat as
follows :
1. Loyalty to the person of Christ as Son of
God and his own Saviour.
2. The blessed hope of his personal coming,
as an imminent event.
3. The high vocation of the preacher as Christ's
herald, witness, and ambassador.
4. The purity of worship as the exaltation of
God alone in his sanctuary.
5. The supreme authority of the inspired and
infallible word of God.
6. The conformity of entire church life to a
biblical pattern.
7. The invisible presence and power of the
Holy Spirit in the church as his temple and seat
of administration.
THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN 99
To present these conceptions in their order,
somewhat as they lay in Dr. Gordon's mind, and
with impartial faithfulness, will be the simple pur-
pose and purport of what follows ; and it is our
hope that, in so doing, thei e may be presented a
commentary on this dream ; and, what is even
more valuable, an outline portrait, at least, of the
man who is to be recognized as among the richest
gifts bestowed by the Father of us all upon the
church of this illustrious century ; and whose
character and influence, all who best knew him
desire to perpetuate and reproduce in the history
now making for the august future.
744426
LOYALTY TO THE PERSON OF CHRIST
O a little deeper and you'll find the
emperor," said the wounded soldier of
Napoleon's bodyguard, to the surgeon
probing for the ball. And in the deepest soul of
Dr. Gordon was the shrine of the personal Christ.
The genius of his whole godliness was found in
this personal bond. He was jealous of truth of
which all sound doctrine is the crystallization, and
all true life the incarnation ; but to him the living
Christ was the Truth, and no mere creed could
satisfy the soul that longed for a person to believe
and love ; and error was repugnant mainly
because it meant a denial, or at least a dishonor,
of Christ the divine Teacher.
This personal center of the gospel and of the
new life explains all that is otherwise mysterious
about this man of God. His conversion was his
turning toward Christ as his Saviour and Lord.
He believed the message that God gave of his
Son, that in him is life everlasting, and that whoso-
ever believeth in him shall not perish, nor come
into judgment, but is passed from death unto life.
lOO
LOYALTY TO THE PERSON OF CHRIST lOI
If he was not troubled with doubts about his own
salvation, it was because he had learned, once for
all, that the ground of hope is not internal, but
external ; not within us, but without us ; not in
any merit or works or feelings of our own, but in
the perfect obedience and vicarious suffering of
our great Substitute and Saviour. Instead of try-
ing, he found peace in trusting, looking away to
Jesus, as the Author and Perfecter of his faith.
It was said of Matthew Henry that, " when he
lacked the faith of assurance, he lived by the faith
of adherence." He, of whom we write, talked
little of the assurance of faith, yet he never
seemed to be darkened by doubt, because he
walked in the light by the faith of adherence,
which became to him the faith of assurance by
unconscious transfer. When the hand has hold
of another's hand, it is hard to doubt that other's
presence ; and if we thought less of our own
assurance, and looked more to the mainten-
ance of an assured and uninterrupted fellowship
with a personal Saviour, we should know that we
are in him and he in us by the Spirit which he
hath given us, and by the constant and conscious
touch of holy contact.
There is such a thing as Isaac Taylor, in one
of his chapters on "Holy Living," calls the
" Practice of the Presence of God." " Lo, I am
with you always, even unto the end of the age,"
says the omnipresent Master ; and there is no
I02 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
greater need than that this presence shall be recog-
nized and felt. It cannot be detected by the
physical senses, for it is not a sensible fact. But,
to him who cultivates the sensibility to the unseen
and exercises his inner senses to discern good and
evil, the reality of the presence of Christ may
become as indisputable as anything demonstrable
by the bodily organs.
Such communion with a personal Christ assim-
ilates character to his likeness. " Beholding as
in a glass the glory of the Lord, we are changed
into the same image from glory to glory."
The rapid transformation of Dr. Gordon into
the resemblance of Christ was patent to all
observers, most of all to those who most closely
observed him and best knew him. In the home,
where it is most difficult to show piety, his piety
not only was shown but it shone. Nearness of
approach often dissipates the charm that invests
others ; but no one felt such absolute confidence
in his genuineness and godliness as those who had
most chance to detect the faults and the blemishes
in his character.
Our Brother Gordon combined the Pauline and
the Johannean temperaments in one, the active
and the reflective ; the combination is rare, and
implies an equally rare type of character. Again,
he blended to an unusual degree the intellectual
and the afifectional. Most men whose minds are
so intense as his, lack heart-qualities ; they
LOYALTY TO THE PERSON OF CHRIST I03
impress others as cold, giving out light but not
heat, and so having little drawing power. This
man beamed with the warmth of sunshine. You
could bask in hi3 rays. There was about him a
benignity, a benevolence, that compelled recogni-
tion. Much as he was admired, he was most
of all loved.
All this was a result of the intense love he bore
to the person of Christ. Had he simply studied
Christianity as a system of truth, he might have
been a righteous man, exhibiting a cold conformity
to righteousness, as a marble statue, rigidly sym-
metrical and frigidly exact, conforms to the stand-
ards of art. But it was only when, penetrating
beyond all mere doctrine, he found the person of
Christ and fixed on him his gaze of adoring love,
that he became the good man, and, like his Master,
went about doing good, attracting to himself such
devotion that for him hundreds would even have
dared to die.
This generation has furnished no other man,
personally known to me, who in these respects so
resembled Dr. Gordon, as did Theodor Christlieb,
of Bonn. Born in 1833 and dying in 1889, in
his fifty-seventh year, his life had run over almost
the same length of time and cycle of history, and
his views of truth were strikingly like those of his
American contemporary, even to such minute
matters as divine healing and the Lord's coming ;
and, like his American brother, he could say at
I04 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
the last, " I have not for an instant ever had the
slightest doubt that I am an accepted sinner, and,
if I have to take leave of all else, I shall never
have to part from thee, my Saviour." Christlieb
also sought to train students for the work of evan-
gehsm, and had the keenest interest in missions,
as his well-known book on the subject attests.
He was the opponent of rationalistic criticism,
affirming that the one key to the word of God is
not found in commentaries nor in the study of the
original text, but can be given only by the Holy
Spirit of God in answer to prayer. He, like Dr.
Gordon, revered the pietists who had kept alive
the slumbering embers of piety and missions amid
the deadness of almost universal rationalism and
skepticism. But most of all did these two men
resemble each other in the blending of the active
temperament of Paul with the reflective tempera-
ment of John, and in that intense loyalty to the
person of Christ which made all other attrac-
tions fade and pale in his presence, as the stars
retire at dawning of the day.
To a man, whose central passion was thus
absorbed on the Christ of God, and who was accus-
tomed to put Jesus before him in daily life, as the
engrossing object of enamoring love, the standard
of all excellence, the model for all imitation, the
final Judge whose approval is the only verdict
to be valued, it is not strange that a dream
should crystallize about his divine Lord, and
LOYALTY TO THE PERSON OF CHRIST I05
that the supreme question which that dream
suggested was, ' ' What would Christ say if he
came to church ? ' '
II
THE PERSONAL COMING OF CHRIST
HERE are three mountain peaks in the
landscape of biblical history and proph-
ecy, and each represents an advent.
First, the advent of the first Adam, in the crea-
tion ; secondly, the advent of the Second Adam,
in his incarnation ; and thirdly, the second advent
of the Son of Man and Son of God, at his final
revelation. Each of these peaks presents a double
prominence ; for the creation of man is associ-
ated with his fall, the incarnation of Christ with
his death, and the second coming of Christ with
his reign.
Between the first and second of these advents,
stands one simple object, an altar of sacrifice
fronting both ways and linking the two : for every
victim that bled and burned on the altar pointed
backward to the sin of Adam and forward to the
coming Lamb of God. And between the second
and third of these advents, the incarnation and the
final revelation of Christ, stands likewise one sim-
ple object — the Table of the Lord, that likewise
points both ways and links the two : for, "As
THE PERSONAL COMING OF CHRIST lO/
often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye
do shew the Lord" s death till he come.'''
There is something very beautiful about the
simple faith that accepts the mystery of biblical
teaching without hesitation, even where it defies
penetration and explanation. Dr. Gordon was
one of the giants of his day. Few men have
minds more colossal in stature and more Titanic
in grasp. Yet he bowed meekly to Scripture
teaching, even where reason could not explore.
The doctrine of the Lord's second coming, with
the august events attendant upon it, such as the
first resurrection of the sleeping saints and the
rapture of living saints, the development and
destruction of antichrist, the conversion of the
Jews and the personal reign of the Son of God,
the apostasy of the church, etc., presented to his
mind difficulties and even discrepancies which his
reason could neither unravel nor reconcile. But,
having satisfied himself that the Bible is the word
of God, he had no further question than this :
What does the Bible teach ? And as he found
this truth lying on the very surface of the word of
God, it would have been an irreverent rationalism
either to refuse to receive it or to attempt by a
tortuous exegesis to explain it away.
Inseparable from this biblical authority and
prominence of this truth was its naturalness, as
the completion and consummation of the divine
plan. There is an unpublished and probably
Io8 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
unwritten lecture of Dr. Gordon's, on the "Plan
of the Ages," which those who heard it regard as
one of the most masterly products of his study
of the word, and in which he set forth the divine
teaching as to the providential purpose exhibited
in the course of history. In the Epistle to the
Hebrews we find the grand conception that God
made the "time worlds" (nluva) as he did the
matter worlds, and framed them together like the
joints of a body or the beams of a house ; in this
study of the ages Dr. Gordon carefully traced the
teaching of the word of God as to these suc-
cessive periods of history. He divided them into
three : the Age of Preparation, the present Gos-
pel Age of Ingathering, and the Age of Consum-
mation ; or the age before Christ, the age from
his first to his second coming, and the millennial
age. In a marvelous way he then proceeded to
show how all prophecies, precepts, and other
teachings of the word fall into their appropriate
place when their relations to these three ages are
understood ; how countless difficulties are relieved
and countless errors avoided, so soon as God's
plans are rightly conceived. With the skill of a
master, he then showed how, the moment that
which is characteristic of the preparatory legal
and Jewish age is imported into the gospel age, or
what belongs in this present evil age is transferred
over into the age to come, or reversely, we turn
cosmos into chaos, and get everything out of
THE PERSONAL COMING OF CHRIST IC9
order into confusion. A very intelligent hearer
remarked, after a delivery of this grand address :
' ' Why you have just found a pigeon-hole for every
text,'' and this well describes the practical effect
of this study of the dispensational history of
redemption. To Dr. Gordon the whole subject
of the Lord's coming, however mysterious, seemed
only the most natural event possible as the con-
clusion and consummation of the plan and history
of redemption. The advent of man to this globe
was also the signal for the disaster of sin and the
ruin of the race. To repair this ruin the
Redeemer came, but in disguise. It can now be
seen that such disguise was essential to his mission,
for had he come otherwise, he could not have
accomplished his holy errand. Humiliation was
necessary in order to vicarious atonement, for the
Second Adam must be identified with the sin,
sorrow, and misery of the race. He must be born
of a woman, made under the law, "a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief." He must by
his poverty and obscurity be identified with the
lowest and the least, else how could he represent
humanity as such ; he must be made sin for us,
and suffer as a malefactor. All this implied an
emptying of self — a making himself of no reputa-
tion, an obedience unto death. But surely this
cannot be the end, the final manifestation of the
Son of God. And so the word of God plainly
reveals another advent, not in shame but in glory,
no THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
not in disguise but in his essential investment, as
the King of kings, with his proper royal retinue —
the natural necessary consummation of the divine
drama, the true revelation of the Son of God.
And the " blessed hope " has thus the highest
prominence in the Scripture ; it is revealed as the
golden milestone toward which all events point
and all roads tend. All good waits to find in his
second appearing, his true epiphany, its comple-
tion and consummation. All that is best in human
history is but the foretaste or first-fruits of which
this is to be the harvest. The conquest of sin,
now individual and occasional and exceptional,
is then to be general, wide-spread, and final.
Now, Satan, though resisted by saints, is yet at
large working disaster to the race ; then, he is to
be bound and finally burned — consigned to the
lake of fire. The Holy Spirit, now shed abun-
dantly on believers, is to be poured out on all
flesh. Evangelism, now like a river, with many
little rills that reach far into the deserts and here
and there turn wastes into gardens, shall then
cover the earth with a flood as the sea does its
bed. Now we see the outgathering of the elect
from all nations : God visiting the Gentiles to take
out of them a people for his name : then the very
kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdom
of the Lord Christ.
Christ's coming is to introduce events and
developments of almost unprecedented character.
THE PERSONAL COMING OF CHRIST III
such as the resurrection of sleeping saints, the res-
toration of Israel, the universal exaltation of God's
anointed King, the final triumph of godhness, the
judgment of God's enemies, and the reward of his
servants.
Surely if the Bible did not reveal this as the
ultimate outcome of the great historic ages, it
would seem the most consistent and natural cul-
mination and consummation of the redemptive
scheme. This is the ' ' blessed hope ' ' toward which
for many years our departed brother looked with
unspeakable longing as the crown of all other hopes.
That which pre-eminently marks the Scripture
teaching as to our Lord's second coming, is its
inwiinence, or the combination of certainty at
some time with uncertainty at what time. And
our Lord himself made this imminence the main
incentive to vigilance and diligence: "Watch,
therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the
hour wherein the Son of man cometh." To refer
this to death is to violate the simplest laws of
exegesis and upset the whole science of hermen-
eutics. Such, and similar expressions can refer
to nothing less than the personal return of the Son
of Man, to assume the sceptre and mount the
throne toward which all prophecy and promise
look. And as Dr. Gordon often said, there is not
a virtue or grace in the whole circle or chorus of
Christian attainments that is not in the Scripture
connected expressly with this blessed hope.
112 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
This dream, therefore, not unnaturally pictures
the Son of Man as coming suddenly to his temple
— unexpectedly appearing in the midst of his people
to test, as with refiner's fire, the service of his
saints, as to whether or not it is an offering in
riehteousness.
Ill
THE SACREDNESS OF THE PREACHER S VOCATION
HERE is one calling which especially
deserves the name of the "High call-
ing of God in Christ Jesus," namely,
that of the preacher of the gospel. He who, from
this divine vocation, goes into any other, though
it be to occupy the throne of a world empire, steps
down to a lower level. The piety and purity of a
Christian community will therefore be found to be
in exact proportion to the intelligent respect and
reverence in which the office of the minister of
Christ is held, and by which it is magnified.
Paul to the Ephesian elders,^ gives the five-fold
aspect of this office of the preacher and teacher :
First, it is a ministry of the Lord Jesus, of whom
he is a disciple and ambassador ; secondly, it is a
ministry of the gospel of the grace of God, of which
he is a herald and witness ; third, it is a ministry
of the kingdom of God, in which he is a subject
and representative ; fourth, it is a ministry of the
church of God, in which he is a servant and shep-
1 Acts 20: 24-28.
8 113
114 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
herd ; fifth, a ministry of the Holy Ghost, of whom
he is an ensample, and overseer or bishop.
To Dr. Gordon the holy vocation was thus
invested with this manifold opportunity and obli-
gation, exalted privilege and commensurate
responsibility. To fulfile these high functions,
three things were pre-eminently needful : that the
word of Christ should dwell in him richly, that
Christ himself should abide in him, and that he
should be filled with the Spirit. Hence he sought
to know the word thoroughly as his text-book, to
know Christ as his personal Saviour, and to know
the Holy Spirit as his indwelling Guide.
He was, as became a preacher of the word, a
man of clear and firm convictions. If physiog-
nomy is any index of character, there was no
mistaking the meaning of that large head, high,
broad brow, firmly set lower jaw. It needed no
exceptionally keen observer to detect and predict
the intellectual capacity, intelligent habit, and
courageous conviction, of which such signs were
hung out by nature herself. And the signs were
not misleading, for he lacked neither mental
power, nor clear vision of truth, and tenacious
hold upon it.
But this devout man of God had learned that
it is not enough that one hold the truth, if the
truth hold not him. " Teneo et Teneor.'" How
grand the significance of the metaphor in the
Epistle to the Ephesians, which represents truth
THE PREACHERS VOCATION II5
as the girdle of the warrior Christian — the very-
zone that, grasping the vital parts, holds all the
other pieces of armor in place ! But let us not
lose sight of the fact that the minister of Christ
must also know his Master, the living Word.
Thackeray sagaciously hints that there is a law
of spiritual harvest ; we sow a thought and reap
an act ; sow an act and reap a habit ; sow a habit
and reap a character ; sow a character and reap
a destiny. A character like that of Dr. Gordon is
a whole history brought to light ; it tells of habits
of life, of thought as well as conduct, of a secret
communion with God in the closet which shows its
fruit and has its reward openly. Charles Lamb
satirizes the man who vainly persuades himself
that he can eat garlic in secret and not smell of it
pubHcly. No man can walk with God in secret
and cultivate the acquaintance of the unseen
Christ, without character becoming radiant, until
even his face will shine though he knows it not.
Hence a minister is not only to be a herald but a
witness. He is to tell what he knows, testify to
that which he has tested and proved by testing,
and, because experience limits his testimony, he
must aim at a constantly richer and deeper
experience in order to a witness correspondingly
convincing and persuading.
How long will it take us to learn that power in
service hangs on the height and breadth of attain-
ment in divine things ? A minister of Christ must
ii6the dream as interpreting the man
be like a mountain, soaring high Godward into
realms of unclouded faith and serene communion ;
for the higher his level, the surer and ampler the
blessing he receives and conveys. The rains
touch first the hilltops, and thence flow to the
plains beneath, and the broader the hilltops the
fuller and farther the flood. How can a congrega-
tion get a rich blessing from a pastor who does
not live on a high level ? I'he pastorates which
have been most widely useful prove beyond doubt
that he who, in the holy office, aspires to power,
intense, extensive, pervasive, permanent, must
first of all live close to God, and touch the very
heart of Christ. He must hear by the ear in the
closet what he is to proclaim with the tongue from
the housetops. The higher the altitude, the richer
the quality of the life and the life-imparting power.
Fellowship with God is not to be sought only as a
means to an end, for it is itself the end to which
all means must contribute ; but, when it is so
sought and cultivated for its own sake and so
found and felt as a fact of consciousness, he who
enjoys such fellowship becomes the fountain of
untold blessing to the church and the world.
Andrew Bonar, of Glasgow, shortly before his
death, recorded this precious testimony: that from
the time of his conversion, sixty years before, he
had not passed a day when he lost access to the
mercy-seat. Is it strange if he felt the power of
Christ, as Paul said, canopying him, like the cur-
THE PREACHERS VOCATION II/
tains of a tent ? ^ The man who thus lives daily
with God and in God, must live by faith. At such
habitual heights, clouds and mists are left below,
and the soul dwells in a clear atmosphere. How
many soever the promises of God, they are all in
Christ, yea, and through him, amen, subject to no
discount, but like any sound financial paper, good
for the full face value.
Our Brother Gordon likewise received, by a
definite act of submission and appropriation, as
he said to a few intimate friends, the Holy Spirit
as his guide.
If any wondered at the simple trust which led
him to attempt great things for God and expect
great things from God, to undertake missions to
Jews and Gentiles, drunkards and outcasts ; to
build up a training school for evangelists and mis-
sionaries, and venture on God for the supply of
every need, and, like Pastor Gossner at sixty years
of age, stop ringing human door bells and knock
only at heaven's gate — the solution is simple : all
this mystery is unlocked by this one key — an
elevated Hfe of godliness, which can be under-
stood by none who hve on a low level, and a
complete surrender to the Holy Spirit to be only
a passive instrument in his hands. Dr. Gordon
lived near enough to God to catch his own Spirit,
which is love, unselfish, self-imparting love — that
"royal law," or principle of life, nobler than any
iiSthe dream as interpreting the man
mere emotion or affection — which gives, gives all,
and gives to all. Hence he not only preached the
gospel to all he could reach, but he was essentially
a missionary, for the Spirit of Christ is the spirit
of missions. Foreign missions took passionate
hold upon him because, like the love of God, they
reach out toward those most distant and most des-
titute. His interest in the heathen, so far off, so
needy, was largely involuntary. Because he was
led of the Spirit and taught of the Spirit, he loved
as God loves, and could no more limit his benev-
olent affection or beneficent activity to those near
by him, than a full mountain stream could deter-
mine to flow only so far. If there is but Httle
water that fact sets a bound beyond which the
stream cannot pass ; but the fuller and mightier
the current, the broader the channel and the
farther the onflow. Imagine the sun bidding his
own beams bless only the nearest planets, and let
Uranus and Neptune be bound in eternal night
and ice ! A Holy Ghost man never bounds his
own effort by narrow limits, or by any limits.
Rivers of living water flow from him and rays of
divine light emanate from him, and to both there
is no limit but the limits of human need.
The ambassador of Christ is so identified with
his Sovereign that he may not only ask but claim
his promised presence.
It is said by Williams of Wern, of Gryffyth, the
Welsh preacher, that having to preach one night
THE PREACHERS VOCATION I I9
he asked to be allowed to withdraw for a time
before the service began, and remained so long
that the good man of the house felt constrained to
send his servant to request him to come and meet
the waiting congregation. As she came near the
room she heard what seemed to be an indication
of conversation between two parties, and, though
in a subdued tone of voice, she caught the words :
"/will not go unless you come with me." She
returned and reported to her master : " I do not
think Mr. Gryffyth will come to-night ; some one
is there with him, and I heard him say that he will
not come unless the other will come also, but I
did not hear the other reply, and so I think Mr.
Gryffyth will not come either." The farmer,
understanding the true case, replied: "Yes, he
will come and I warrant the other will come too,
if matters are as you say between them ; but we
would better begin singing and reading until the
two do come." And sure enough when Gryffyth
made his appearance there was another who came
with him, came with him in power, and that
proved a pentecostal meeting when many found
newness of life.
The ambassador of Christ has a right to insist
reverently on Jiis sovereign Master's unseen pres-
ence and manifested power. How significant that
prayer in the assembly of the early church, when,
going out from the threatening council to their
own company, the apostles with one accord
I20 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
besought God: "And now, Lord, behold their
threatenings : and grant unto thy servants, that
with all boldness they may speak thy word, by
stretching forth thine hand to heal ; and that signs
and wonders may be done by the name of thy
holy child Jesus" !^ Nothing takes away bold-
ness in testimony to the Lord like the lack of his
co-witness in his mighty works. He loves the
reverent confidence that says, "I will not go
unless thou go with me." If we are about our
Father's business, we have a right to say : " And
he that sent me is with me."
1 Acts 4 : 29, 30.
IV
JEALOUSY FOR DIVINE WORSHIP
AUL gives three marks of the true ' ' cir-
cumcision ' ' ; and the first of all is this :
the worship of God in the Spirit.^
These are days of especial peril from ritualism
and formalism. This, which is the leaven of the
Pharisees, is perhaps as dangerous as the leaven
of the Sadducees, which is rationalism, or of the
Herodians, which is secularism. Whenever, in
the ages of church history, spiritual worship has
decHned, a formal devotion or at best a devout
formalism has taken its place, and the forms of
worship have multiplied in direct proportion to the
lack of spirituality in worship. And so there are
many who live close to God to whom the modern
multiplication of ceremonies and rites is an utter
absurdity.
An aged and venerable clergyman of the
Anglican church, importuned by his son — who
had run off into the extreme of a Romanizing
ritualism — to preach in his "chapel of ease," at
last reluctantly consented, but startled the congre-
^ Phil. 3 : 3.
122 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
gation by announcing as his text, "Lord, have
mercy upon my son, for he is a lunatic," and then
proceeded to show the utter lunacy of modern
methods by which worship is robbed of all its
primitive simplicity, of which an elaborate cere-
monialism takes the place.
At an early period in Dr. Gordon's ministry,
he began to turn his attention to the matter of
public worship. The Saxon word itself gives us a
most important hint, — worth-ship, — ascribing
worth to God, describing his worth in terms most
fitting and honoring to him, inscribing that worth
on the door-posts and gates of his sanctuary not
only, but on the gates and door-posts of our own
dwellings, and the expanse of our brows, and the
palms of our hands, as something to be constantly
borne in mind.
The one supreme law of worship is this :
" The Lord alone shall be exalted.'' He is a
divinely jealous God, in that he will have no
superior or even rival in the affections of his
people ; he will not tolerate even as a medium of
approach to him, anything whereby our thought
and love are diverted from him. The ancient
altar was to be of unhewn stone, lest the art
expended in its adornment by the sculptor's chisel,
might draw eyes from the vicarious victim that lay
upon it. And so, in the house of worship, any-
thing whatever which intrudes itself between the
human soul and the object of worship is a fatal
JEALOUSY FOR DIVINE WORSHIP I 25
hindrance to the worshiper and a positive offense
to God. Simplicity is of necessity the law of
purity in worship, for it is the condition of single-
ness of mind. Elaboration, which is both the
handmaid and offspring of art, may easily become
idolatrous by introducing a type and style and
standard of eloquence in oratory, of worldly
excellence in music, of aesthetics in architecture,
garniture, and furniture, which defeat the main
purpose for which worship is instituted, namely,
the exaltation of God alone before the fixed gaze
of the soul.
This Boston pastor saw and felt what thousands
seem unable to appreciate, or even apprehend,
that it is not hostility to artistic perfection, but
jealousy for spirituality, which inspires the purg-
ing of worship from secular attractions. No man
who knew the pastor of Clarendon Street Church
could accuse him of antagonism or indifference to
the beautiful, whether in form or color or sound.
He was no cast-iron utilitarian. But he felt the
supreme need of a type of worship consistent with
its divine conception and answering to its scrip-
tural purpose. How could a choir of unconverted
singers make melody in their hearts unto the
Lord, or inspire holy harmony in worshipers ?
How could a musical performance on the part of
mere artists, hired at costly prices, fulfill the high
demands of public praise ? He felt, and to this
end he particularly wrought, that the hands which
124 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
touch the organ keys, or the voices which sing
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, should be
themselves at the disposal of the Holy Spirit, and
usable as his instruments. Moreover, he felt that
all worship must be marked by unity of impres-
sion. Hence a mere musical programme, arranged
for artistic effect, without reference to harmony
with the truth presented, and with other parts of
worship, is an anomaly and absurdity.
This philosophy of worship he consistently car-
ried out. It affected his preaching. He had
early begun to study oratory as an art, and his
aim and ambition were to excel in public address.
The sermon was to be an ideal product, a finished
work of brain and pen, delivered with grace and
skill. But he found before long, that there is as
much risk to the preacher in exalting preaching to
a fine art, as there is to the singer in idolizing the
aesthetic element in sacred song. To preach with
wisdom of words has often made the Cross of none
effect by hiding the crucified and glorified Christ
behind the veil of human eloquence ; and not
until that elaborate and embroidered curtain is
rent in twain from top to bottom, will the glory of
God be revealed. It is possible to obscure the
object of adoration by the very clouds of incense
with which we surround him ; to worship God with
forms and methods which call so much attention
to themselves as to forfeit all transparency and
surround him with the opaque smoke from our
JEALOUSY FOR DIVINE WORSHIP 1 2$
own censers. The mere art of the apothecary has
too much to do with compounding our incense,
and in it are mingled too many earthly ingre-
dients ; there is too much smoke and too little
fragrance.
Worship, in its wider scope, takes in all church
conduct, even to the attitude of the worshiper,
physical, mental, moral, spiritual. And the one
law to keep before us, is this : ' ' See that thou
make all things according to the pattern shewed
to thee in the mount (Heb. 8 : 5). Whatever
is unscriptural is generally found to be unspiritual.
The only way of avoiding a Romanizing ritual is
to avert from our worship what is not enjoined or
encouraged in the word of God. The spectacular
involves risk, for it absorbs the attention through
the eye ; and the artistically musical, for it absorbs
attention through the ear ; whatever draws
thought from God, hinders worship ; whatever
tends to lift him to sole prominence, by so much
helps worship. And it is not too much to say
that nothing which does not directly or indirectly
contribute to such exaltation of God has a prope?'
place in sanctuary service. Prayer and praise,
the reading of the word and the preaching of the
gospel, and even the offering of consecrated sub-
stance, are all, therefore, ways of exalting God,
because they present man in the attitudes of sup-
pliant and servant, student and steward, waiting
at his Lord's feet.
126 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
How natural therefore, again, that our brother
in his dream should searchingly inquire what
would be the verdict of his sovereign Master were
he to come to church, as to the reality or vanity
of the worship he found there !
THE AUTHORITY OF THE WORD OF GOD
F any two characteristics must always be
inseparably associated with this devout
disciple whose dream is here recorded,
they must surely be his unshaken confidence in
the seven-sealed book of God and his personal sur-
render to the seven-fold power of the Spirit of God.
As to the book, that is a remarkable description,
or designation given us in the fifth chapter of the
Apocalypse — the scroll, written within and on the
back side, sealed with seven seals. What a strik-
ing metaphor to express the very handwriting of
God in the inspired volume, attested with the
seven-fold seal of complete authority and authen-
ticity, and so bearing the unmistakable sanction of
the divine Author !
The work will bear the marks of the workman
— his knowledge and wisdom, skill and design.
Moreover, the more perfect the workmanship the
more complete the exhibition of the character of
him who thought out and wrought out such per-
fection of product. Now it is very remarkable
that just such seven-fold perfection is claimed for
127
128 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
the word of God. We associate with him who is
its author, seven attributes : such as omnipotence,
omniscience, omnipresence — natural attributes ;
and providence, truth, righteousness, and love —
moral attributes. All these his word displays in a
remarkable manner and degree :
His Omnipotence, in the miracles of power
which it records.
His Omniscience, in its predictive prophecies.
His Omnipresence, in its unity of plan and
structure.
His Providence, in its history and biography.
His Truth, in its general accuracy.
His Righteousness, in its faultless morality.
His Love, in its transforming energy.
No survey of the inspired word is complete
until it takes in all these forms of proof and
methods of attestation and authentication. As it
is of the utmost importance to us to know beyond
doubt that the Bible is God's book, and to repose
with absolute certainty upon its teachings, God has
so fully set his seal and sanction upon it that no
reasonable doubt remains. And it is significant
that all these proofs of its divine origin lie within
itself, so that we have only to search the Scriptures
to find God's seven-fold seal impressed on them
all the way through.
A. J. (Gordon was the man of the book, and of
the one book. No man, perhaps, of his genera-
tion, has done more in the line of Christian apolo^l
THE AUTHORITY OF THE WORD OF GOD 1 29
getics, but it was mostly by indirection. He
defended the Bible by expounding it.
His attitude toward the Holy Scriptures was
beautifully reverent. To him the Bible 7L>as a
livi7ig book, not only containing a divine message,
but divinely inbreathed, and therefore instinct
with the divine life. As God first made man out
of the dust of the ground, and then breathed into
him the breath of life, so that man became a liv-
ing soul, so, whatever was earthly and human in
the book had taken form and fashion under the
finger of God and had become living by the
breath of his divine inspiration. This humble
believer went to the Bible not as to a dead book,
but as to a living being ; he communed with the
word as with a person, and expected to find in
such converse the response to his advances and
questionings, and he was not disap])ointed. He
has often spoken of the word of God as giving
answer, as one prayerfully searches it and seeks
guidance in doubt, difficulty, and perplexity ; and,
in common with the most prayerful students of its
mysteries, he found the heavenly Interpreter
unfolding and applying its truths with the skill of
a personal counsellor.
Dr. Gordon was not among those who doubt
either the inspiration or infallibility of the divine
word. He believed that it was essentially iner-
rant, and when he found difficulties or discrep-
ancies, instead of distrusting the accuracy of the
9
130 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
divine oracles, he rather suspected the accuracy
of his own understanding. He traced the defects,
not to the objects seen, but to the eye seeing ; and
when contradiction was apparent, he waited, as
when the twin pictures of the stereoscope fail to
blend, one waits to get the common focal center
of vision which resolves the discord into harmoni-
ous unity. In other departments of knowledge
we understand in order to believe ; but in this
divine science of spiritual mysteries we believe in
order to understand. Faith is philosophy here,
and obedience is the organ of spiritual vision :
" If any man will do his will he shall know of the
doctrine." " If ye will not believe, surely ye
shall not be established."
To this constant and searching study of the
word of God, our departed brother owed much of
the energy and beauty of his writings.
In literary style he revealed remarkable power
in analysis and antithesis, and these are perhaps
the most conspicious features of his composition.
He saw truth in itself and its relations. He had
the homiletical faculty which detects the natural
divisions of a text or theme as an astronomer sees
orderly constellations where common eyes see
only irregular and scattered stars. The facility
and felicity with which he saw and expressed the
elements of a complete truth, discriminated
between things that differ, and arranged and
adjusted related truths, were very remarkable.
THE AUTHORITY OF THE WORD OF GOD I3I
He must have been a clear thinker to make such
clear distinctions. There was no indefinite haze
or indiscriminate muddle about his views or state-
ments of truth ; and we cannot but think that he
owed even these literary attainments largely to
the daily study of His words who spake as never
man spake.
A few examples may both prove and illustrate
what we have said. In that remarkable book on
"The Ministry of the Spirit," contrasting the
work of Conscience and of the Holy Spirit, he
thus represents the matter ; ^
Conscience Convinces —
Of sin committed;
Of righteousness impossible ;
Of judgment impending.
The Comforter Convinces —
Of sin committed ;
Of righteousness imputed ;
Of judgment accomplished.
He further says,^ that " Conscience is the wit-
ness to the law ; the Spirit is the witness to grace.
Conscience brings legal conviction ; the Spirit
brings evangelical conviction ; the one begets a
conviction unto despair, the other a conviction
unto hope."
Who cannot see in such distinctions and dis-
criminations as these the fruits of a microscopic
study of the inspired word ? The man who
beheved Scripture to be "literature indwelt by
the Spirit of God" \^ that in the Scripture the
Holy Ghost speaks, and " we can only understand
his thoughts by listening to his words " ; * such a
1 Page 202. 2 Page 191. 3 Page 173. 4 Page 176.
132 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
man would naturally examine into the exact terms
used, and into the nicest shades of meaning which
distinguish them from each other, and so learn for
himself to use language with deep apprehension
of its significance and critical accuracy in its
application to the expression of ideas.
VI
THE SCRIPTURAL PATTERN OF CHURCH LIFE
OR see, saith he, that thou make all things
according to the pattern shewed to thee
in the mount," The church is a divine
institution. It grew not, as many human institu-
tions do, by a process of evolution out of man's
conscious need. He who saw what man needed,
fashioned this society of believers, and it was
complete in all essentials from the first.
But, to tarry further on the thought of a scrip-
tural pattern of church life, this dream reveals the
whole secret of Dr. Gordon's purpose. He was
not a dictator seeking to have his own w-ay, and
autocratically forcing on the church his own will ;
nor a half-crazy fanatic following some vagary or
impracticable theory ; but, like Moses, he had his
eye on a scriptural and divine pattern, and he
long and laboriously wrought to mold everything
in church life according thereto. That a custom
had grown up was no reason for its continuance ;
it might be, as Cyprian said, vetustas erroris.
"Every plant which my Heavenly Father hath
not planted shall be rooted up, ' ' said his Master
134 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
before him, when his attention was called to the
fact that his teaching had given the Pharisees
offense. And the imperturbable spirit with which
Pastor Gordon calmly went forward, without
undue carefulness as to the opinions or opposition
he encountered, in the pursuit of his object, must
have been caught from his Master. He found
some plants growing in the sanctuary courts which
he knew his Heavenly Father had not planted,
and he determined to root them up, though it
might take twenty years to do it, as it did.
It may be well to ask, what are the scriptural
marks of a church of Christ ? They seem to be
four : the apostolic church was an assembly for
•worship : an organized body for aggressive work
for Christ ; a school for training disciples ; a home
for the family of God. Doubtless all that vitally
pertains to the original scriptural conception of a
church of Christ can be included in this simple
outline.
I. Worship was the leading idea, as we have
seen, the exalting of God, and his dear son Jesus
Christ, and the Holy Spirit, before the thought
and adoring love of disciples. We find not a
trace of sacred places, or sacred persons, and
scarce a hint of sacred titnes or seaso?ts. Where-
ever and whenever God and his worshiping people
met, the ground was thereby hallowed and the
time sanctified ; and all believers seem to have
been singularly on a level, preaching the word,
SCRIPTURAL PATTERN OF CHURCH LIFE 1 35
teaching the way of God more perfectly, and even
administering sacramental rites. ^ Worship seems
to have been perfectly simple, consisting of prayer,
praise, reading and expounding the word, bearing
witness to the resurrection of Christ, baptizing
believers, and breaking bread in his name, with
at least occasional offerings for poor saints. There
are no clerical prerogatives, titled officials, choirs
or hired singers, no secular trustees, no worldly
entertainments, no consecrated buildings, and not
a sign of a salaried service of any sort. God
seems to be the center around which the early
church crystallized, and the whole organization of
believers was free from complicated methods and
worldly maxims.
2. Work by all, in diverse spheres of activity,
according to diversity of gifts, was the law of
church life. The Spirit speaks expressly in the
Epistle to the Ephesians,^ that the very purpose of
all offices and functions, apostles, prophets, evan-
gelists, pastors, and teachers, was one sublime
end : service. All the gifts and graces bestowed
and distributed by the Spirit were for the perfect-
ing of the saints unto the work of serving, unto
the building up of the body of Christ, so that there
might be the double growth of accession and
expansion. The early church had no room for
an idle and selfish soul. Every believer was a
worker, warrior, witness. He came into the
1 Compare Acts 8:4; 11 : 19-21 ; 18 : 26 ; 8 : 35-38.
2 4: 11-16.
136 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
church as soon as he believed and was baptized,
to be a member in the body where every member
had an office, and must needs fulfill his function
in order to the health and help of the whole body.
The idea of simply coming into the church as a
candidate for salvation has no place in apostolic
ideas whatever. The church was composed of
professedly regenerated people, giving themselves
to the work of edifying saints and evangelizing
sinners.
3. The school feature is prominent. The
believer was a disciple, a learner, and he was to
be docile and humble enough to be ready to be
taught by any one competent to teach. In the
majority of cases, converts needed instruction, and
there is nothing more beautiful than where Apollos,
the scholar and orator of Alexandria, puts himself
under the tuition of two poor tent-makers of
Corinth, one of them a woman, to be taught the
way of God more perfectly. The first theological
seminary was a humble lodging, with a single
student and two professors, a man and his wife,
and the wife the head of the faculty. Sublime
simpHcity indeed ! where he that hears and
believes enters a divine school, and takes his
place as a pupil to be further taught whatsoever
Christ has commanded, and trained to be a
teacher and helper of others.
4. We must add to all these the conception of
a family home. In order to become a radiating
SCRIPTURAL PATTERN OF CHURCH LIFE 1 37
point the church must be first a rallying point.
There must be a bond of brotherhood and asso-
ciation in order to a mutual edification and an
effective co-operation in service. And so we find
love, the bond of perfectness and the impulse to
all service, dominant in the early church. Love
knows no distinctions, except it be in favor of the
least and lowest, and love made everybody wel-
come and at home. Poverty and obscurity, ignor-
ance and illiteracy, shut no convert out from sym-
pathy and fellowship. Within the assembly of
saints there were no caste lines or barriers. The
idea of renting or selling pews or sittings at auction
to the highest bidder — of setting up a property
right and restriction in a place of worship, to make
a poor man feel ill at ease or shut him out
altogether — the very suggestion is utterly foreign
to all New Testament notions.^
A preacher and pastor who thus magnifies his
ministry in its five-fold relation to the person of
Christ and the Holy Ghost, the gospel of grace,
the church of God and the kingdom of God, as
in every department simply a service, will com-
municate, consciously or unconsciously, the con-
tagion of his holy enthusiasm, to all receptive
hearers. His preaching will be a university edu-
cation in divine things. He will not think of his
church as a field to work so much as a force to
work with ; not as the parish which claims and
1 Compare i Cor. 11 : 17-22 ; James 2 : 1-9,
138 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
bounds his love and labor so much as the garner
containing the good seed of the kingdom, to be
scattered for a harvest. He will try to train every
believer into a herald and witness, so that from
ear to heart and then from heart to lip and so from
lip to ear again, the gospel message may run on
its ceaseless round of salvation.
Because Dr. Gordon kept such a scriptural
pattern before him and worked toward that, he
gradually purged worship of all its meretricious
secular arts, led his people into manifold forms of
holy service, made the church literally a training
school for disciples, and a home where poor and
rich, high and low, met on terms of equal right
and privilege. There was nothing for which he
wrought which was not a part of the scriptural
model, and he succeeded because he knew that
God was with him and he could afford to wait
God's time.
We can again understand the dream and its
interpretation, for it is obvious that, in waking
and sleeping hours alike, the question before him
was, what would Christ himself say if he came to
church ? Would he find the assembly of saints
exemplifying the scriptural and spiritual idea of
the body of Christ ?
VII
THE PRESIDENCY OF THE SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH
OHN OWEN gave to the church a Piieii-
matologia — a discourse upon the Holy
Spirit which, in his day, taught the
church a much needed lesson. He maintained
that each different age has its own test of ortho-
doxy. Before Christ came it was found in the
attitude of God's people as to Messianic prophecy ;
in the day of Christ's personal incarnation, it was
found in his reception or rejection by those to
whom he presented his claims as Son of God ;
after the day of Pentecost the test was whether or
not we have received the Holy Ghost, and how far
he has freedom to work in and through us.
Adoniram J. Gordon, unconsciously perhaps,
gave to the church another pneiiviatologia. He
sought to realize for himself what it meant to be
like Daniel, " greatly beloved of God " ; and so
he became in himself both an expression and exhi-
bition of the fact of the Spirit's indwelling and
inworking. From this personal experience he
carried the doctrine and influence into the collec-
tive body of behevers, and so sought to make the
139
140 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
church of which he was pastor a Hving temple of
the Holy Spirit.
This conception of the indwelling and presi-
dency of the Holy Spirit affected two great
spheres : first, his individual life ; and secondly,
his pastoral life. Personally he was so indwelt by
the Spirit that he saw truth through illumined
eyes. He was a seer, a modern prophet, in the
sense of insight if not of foresight. In Samuel's
days "there was no open vision," and the word
of the Lord was correspondingly precious. Han-
nah's son was not only a Samuel, God-asked, but
a Theodore, God-given — a special bestowment of
the Lord to revive the spirit of prophecy and
restore the open vision. A. J. Gordon was given
of God to the modern church in the days of a
waning spirituality, when the sense of the Holy
Spirit's personality, deity, and even reality was
dull and dim, and in some cases quite lost, to
revive the impression and quicken the expression
of the Spirit's actual and active indwelling. If he
had any special office which was unique, it was
to appreciate, and in his own person and life illus-
trate, the inworking and outworking of the Holy
Ghost ; and on a larger scale furnish both demon-
stration and illustration of the Spirit's administra-
tion of church life also under favorable conditions.
Upon this last and most important department
of thought it is the less necessary to dilate, inas-
much as to it Dr. Gordon gives more than thirty
THE SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH I4I
pages in his work on "The Ministry of the
Spirit." ^ But, for the sake of those who may not
have read that masterly treatise, and to complete
the interpretation of this dream, it may be well to
sketch in outline the simple yet sublime concep-
tion presented in Scripture, and particularly in the
Acts of the Apostles, of the Spirit's administration
of church life.
Considered as a temple of which Christ is the
corner-stone, and in which believers are living
stones, he is the Divine Indweller, and holds there
his throne and seat, as the Shekinah in the Holy
of Holies of old. Considered as a body of which
Christ is the head, and all regenerate souls mem-
bers, he is the all-pervading and controlling Spirit
that vitalizes and subsidizes the whole. The
moment such a conception is formed in the mind,
all the rest follows. He who is enthroned in a
temple properly claims all homage and obedi-
ence ; he who as the Spirit of Life fills and
thrills the body, not only 7tiay but must rule in the
whole organism, unless as in diseased members
the conditions are so abnormal as to interrupt his
proper activity. And again, as the spirit of life is
the organizing power in the body, and distributes
blood, nerve-force, nutritive energy in every part
of the body, and, as the central will, wields for
life's ends every member and organ — so the Spirit
of God where he is permitted to control abso-
1 Chapter vii.
142 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
lutely will make every part of the body of Christ
both healthful and useful. If we yield he will
imeld.
Hence follow several vital conclusions :
I. As to the constitution and organization of
the church, members should be added, and all
officers should be appointed, by the Spirit. No
ceremonies, ordinances, or sacraments can make
a church-member any more than any human power
can add a member to the body. We are to be
jealous and zealous not to have multitudes added
to church rolls, but "to the Lord." And, in
electing officers, we are to look out those who
have not only honest report and wisdom but are
full of the Holy Ghost ; otherwise how can he be
unhindered in his administration ? Every unre-
generate or even unsanctified m.an or woman in a
church office or even a church-membership,
obstructs the divine policy of administration, so
that we may virtually unseat the Holy Spii'it from
his rightful throne and "see," by putting into, or
allowing to be put into, places of official trust,
those who are not in sympathy with the Spirit's
mind and methods. What then shall be said of
the inventio?t of a whole hierarchy, which borrows
its entire framework from Constantine's imperial
court, with a score of offices unknown to the apos-
tolic church, with vestments and diadems, palaces
and retinues, salaries and dignities ; and what of
the presumption of claiming to be the vicar of
THE SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH 1 43
Christ, when his ascension gift was his own Divine
Vicar, the Paraclete ! Is this not indirect blas-
phemy against the Holy Spirit ?
We begin to understand now why this gifted pas-
tor cared so little for ecclesiastical honors, dignities,
and preferments. He yielded himself to the Holy
Spirit, to be simply a servant — the servant of Christ
and the servant of the church for Jesus' sake. All
airs and assumptions of lordship were to him
arrogant and offensive, and implied disloyalty to
the Spirit. He was one of those of whom Hudson
Taylor says that they are not so anxious to be suc-
cessors of the apostles who went indeed to bring
food but brought no inquiring soul back with them,
as to be successors of the Samaritan woman who
forgot her waterpot in her zeal to bear the living
water to the thirsty souls at Sychar, and brought
back a whole city to sit at Jesus' feet.
2. As to the distribution of spheres of service.
Who is he that sets in the church, apostles,
prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, elders
and deacons and deaconesses ; and appoints
every servant for every service ? Who knows the
heart, and knows the work, and can fit each for
the other, but the Lord, the Spirit ? Of what
transcendent importance to the church to have a
divine wisdom select and a divine grace qualify
every member for his own office ; nay, to have the
Spirit determine what work needs to be done, and
what are the time, place, and way to begin it or
144 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
enlarge it ! What an awfully august privilege and
responsibility combined, if it be possible and
practicable for a church so to be surrendered to the
Holy Ghost and dominated by him, as that in all
deliberations and determinations, in all results
reached through prayerful counsel and obedient
self-surrender, it may be reverently true to say,
"// seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us.''
3. As to the practical purity and spirituality of
church life. Temple of the Holy Ghost ! Body
of Christ indwelt by the Spirit of God ! What a
hallowing must there be tothose who really believe
this ! What a sad commentary on the church's
attitude toward the Spirit, that it is possible with-
out remonstrance for godless singers to be hired
to conduct the service of song, which is a mockery
without the grace in the heart that makes melody
unto the Lord ! That it is possible in choosing a
pastor, to consult only his intellectual standing
and popular oratory, without ever asking whether
he be a spirit-filled man ! That it is possible for
such an unscriptural office to exist as that of secu-
lar trustees, and that men should be deliberately
put into control without any regard often to the
fact that they do not even profess to be
regenerate !
There are some who cry down, by the obnoxi-
ous name of "pessimism," those who hint that
the modern church is drifting toward apostasy.
Yet what is apostasy but a departure from the
THE SPIRIT IN THE CHURCH I45
essefitial principles of Christian life and church
life ! And Dr. Gordon, gentle as he was, and
slow to accuse his brethren, felt in his soul that
the church of Christ has largely lost sight of the
very essentials of a Spirit-filled and Spirit-ruled
body; and that Romanizing ritualism, rationalistic
skepticism, and a world-assimilating secularism,
are the trinity practically worshiped in the place
of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
VIII
THE LAST MESSAGE TO THE CHURCH
R. GORDON being dead yet speaketh.
Perhaps some who would not hear
while he lived will listen, now that he
is no more among us, to the last message which
he can ever deliver to his brethren.
What is the voice that breaks even the death
silence ?
1. He tells us that preaching is nothing if it
be not the utterance of the mind of the Spirit, and
that, therefore, we who speak must tarry long in
the closet with the word, that he may unloose its
seals and unveil our eyes to behold wondrous
things out of his inspired book.
2. He tells us that prayer is the one vital
element in all true worship, praying in the Holy
Ghost, asking in Christ's name and by the power
of the Spirit ; the believer becoming the channel
of a double intercession, the Holy Spirit interced-
ing within by originating all true prayer, the
ascended Christ interceding at God's own right
hand, by receiving, perfecting, and transmitting
all true prayer.
146
THE LAST MESSAGE TO THE CHURCH 14 7
3. He tells us that praise, which is the ele-
ment of worship apposite to prayer, needs a
spiritual mind to appreciate and a spiritual frame
to exercise it. Church music as a fine art simply,
is an affront to God rather than an approach to
him, for it assumes and presumes to set up an art
standard in place of the beauty of holiness.
There are two passages, respectively in the
Epistles to the Ephesians ^ and the Colossians,
which being combined, would read somewhat
thus :
" Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in
all wisdom, and be filled with the Spirit ; speak-
ing among yourselves, teaching and admonishing
one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing with grace in your hearts and mak-
ing melody in your hearts to the Lord." Thus
combined, we get a little world of suggestive
teaching in this narrow compass. We are taught
that the prerequisite to all holy service in song is
two-fold : rich indwelling of the word of God,
and complete infilling of the Spirit ; then our
songs become a holy outpouring of a spiritual
acquaintance with the word of God and the Spirit
of God. Again, we are taught that the attraction
of such song is found in the grace and melody of
heart, which only God can detect or hear. But
we are also taught a lesson, most unique and
novel, that such song is a vehicle for mutual
1 Eph. 5 ; 19 ; Col. 3 : x6.
148 THE DREAM AS INTERPRETING THE MAN
teaching, exhorting, admonishing. In other words,
it is one way of preaching the gospel of salvation
to sinners and of edification to saints.
How blind we have been that we have never
understood the value of holy song as a means of
teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in
righteousness, like the inspired Scripture, and of
imparting wisdom, grace, strength, comfort, like
the inspiring Spirit ! Church music, purged of its
secular corruptions and charged with the Spirit's
life, might become spiritual food and drink, medi-
cine and message, all at once ; a feeder, healei,
helper of souls. Is it that now ?
The dream and the dreamer are left to us only
in memory. But was not God speaking to the
whole church when, in the visions of the night, he
stamped on Pastor Gordon's mind and heart the
image of Christ coming to church ?
Let us judge ourselves, that we be not judged.
Let us try our ways and turn again unto the Lord.
Let us dare cease measuring ourselves by our-
selves, and comparing ourselves among ourselves,
and set up God's own standard of measurement
and comparison.
" And the Lord said unto me, . . What seest
thou ?
And I said, A plumbline.
Then said the Lord,
Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of
my people." ^
1 Amos 7 : 8.
THE LAST MESSAGE TO THE CHURCH I49
God is applying his standard to the work which
men have builded, and its unhallowed and irreg-
ular construction is sadly evident. Who among
us with the clearness of a divinely given vision,
the courage of a divinely wrought conviction, will
dare pull down what is not plumb and level by
his standards, and rebuild according to the divine
pattern ?
Blessed temple of God, indeed, to which the
Master can come and find no need of the scourge
of small cords. Blessed church of which he can
say :
" Thou hast kept my word,
And hast not denied my name.
I have loved thee.
Because thou hast kept the word of my
patience,
I also will keep thee
From the hour of temptation. " ^
1 Rev. 3 : 8-10.
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